"Hard Comforting" by Jennifer Mills Kerr

Hard Comforting

Red and gold, the arid afternoon. I walked all day to
gather late apples. Beyond farmsteads, woods, and fields,
turbulent wind and a longing to touch you. Cemeteries
without the city walls, remote, like my father, and I, nerves
and blood and thunder. Dusk, burning to speak, a purpled
gloom ending the turbulent hours. Fruit trees, gray limbs
shifting, drawing night, blacker than childhood. A time held,
made simple by loss. On the other shore, wild iris, tall slim
trees, and every stone echoing stars.

sources:
Louise Gluck: “The Pond,” “The School Children,” “Mount Ararat,” “The Wild Iris”
Robert Frost: “Storm Fear,” “The Wood Pile,” “Directive”
Charlotte Bronte: Villette, Chapter 15

Jennifer Mills Kerr

Jennifer Mills Kerr is an educator, poet, and writer who lives in northern California. She has work upcoming in The Inflectionist Review and Neologism Poetry Journal. Connect with Jennifer through her Substack newsletter, “Poetry Inspired,” a curation of poems each month.

Headshot: Jennifer Mills Kerr

Photo Credit: Staff