There are those who carry light with them
the way the rest of us might carry bags
of groceries. They do all the things we do
but with more effervescence.
Out of the sepia of daily conversation
their words blush and bubble; clear the fog.
Those who carry light among us,
we all know who they are,
but not where their light comes from,
or why it stays with us
when they are gone.
When Anna comes to mind
I still feel how it felt to run
under her stars with sparklers in the dark
and I still hear the sound
of Anna laughing. I have to get on
with doing what I have to do,
but I am lighter, more illuminated now
simply for having Anna with me.
Deborah C. Thomas lives in Cape Meares, Oregon at the end of a dirt road in a village of sixty five residents. Until now, she has submitted very few poems for publication, and the ones that have appeared in print appeared in mostly foreign countries, under previously married names. The pinnacle of her career in writing poetry, as she reminds her children, was winning a contest on A Prairie Home Companion, for a love poem, being asked to read it on the air, and conversing with the Host, G.K., on the topic of why somebody might live deep in the woods, write drawers full of poems and stories, and never get around to sharing them.
© 2019, Deborah C. Thomas
Halfway Down the Stairs 