every time my heart
catches the warm wind
it is with a wish
that the hawk
will spare the fieldmouse
inside of me
lives both
Peter Engen grew up in the oldest Norwegian settlement west of the Mississippi and on the fly with his sometime itinerant parents. He has lived most of his life in the hills and unglaciated valleys of Minnesota and Wisconsin. Some of his deepest poet yearnings were sought and quenched in the megalopolis cities of New York and Los Angeles before returning to his roots in the upper Midwest. He currently lives part-time on a solar-powered, green architecture farm near La Crosse.
© 2020, Peter Engen
Halfway Down the Stairs 