Raised within walls
we describe life’s fullness
as close confines.
At night I hear floorboards creak
while our German Shepherd
roams, his inquiring nose sensing
what I cannot hear.
Perhaps wildness calls him.
Leashed walks and lifeless food
can’t ease the longing
for what lies beyond.
I lie awake, listening.
The concert of beauty and pain
plays more clearly at night,
our cells resonate
to love, loss and need
trembling from
the world’s unspoken places.
Sighing, the dog lies down.
I gather my limitations close
as a familiar blanket
taking shallow breaths
waiting for sleep.
Laura Grace Weldon is the author of a poetry collection, Tending and a handbook of alternative education, Free Range Learning, with a book of essays due out soon. She’s written poetry with nursing home residents, used poetry to teach conflict resolution, employed poetry in memoir writing classes, and painted poems on beehives, although her work appears in more conventional places, such as: JJournal, Penman Review, Literary Mama, Christian Science Monitor, Mom Egg Review, Dressing Room Poetry Journal, Pudding House, Shot Glass Journal, and others. Visit her at www.lauragraceweldon.com
© 2010, Laura Grace Weldon
Halfway Down the Stairs 