Porous For the moment, this wet moment in the waning minutes of July, we’re hydraphiles, lapping up the water the sky has sent our way nearly every day, soaking the roots of the hydrangeas which are blooming like no other summer, curing the withered dogwood which looked like it was on its way out at the beginning of spring. True, the legs of the sunflowers are smudged and brown, but the viburnums’ leaves love it and we love the depth of the green all around us. We don’t know what the invisible seamstress means to make of us, so we drink this in, here in our corner of New England on the hill above the hollow with two brooks beside us and stone walls to separate the orchard from the road. ///// Prompt If you write a poem it must be a poem that never ends, one that wakes up with you in the morning, stays with you throughout your day and follows you to bed at night. If you’re lucky, your poem will fall asleep. But most poems prefer to ride into your dreams, not rearing their horses’ heads until their hooves are spent. ///// An American poet and artist, Sally Van Doren is the author of four poetry collections, including Sibilance, (LSU Press, Fall 2023), and Sex at Noon Taxes which received the First Book Award from the Academy of American Poets. Her poetry has appeared widely in national and international publications such as Poetry Daily, Poetry London, The Moth, The New Republic, and Poetry Ireland Review, featured on The Writer’s Almanac on NPR, The Poetry Foundation and American Life in Poetry and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her ongoing text, “The Sense Series,” was part of a multi-media installation performance at The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. Her art appears on the cover of The Difference is Spreading: Fifty Contemporary Poets on Fifty Poems (UPenn Press 2022) and as the featured artist in The Nashville Review, December, and2RiverView. She has participated in solo and group exhibitions in galleries in Connecticut and St. Louis and her work is held in distinguished private and corporate collections. A St. Louis native, Van Doren holds a BA from Princeton in Comparative Literature and an MFA from the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She has taught poetry at the 92ndStreet Y, Washington University and other public and private educational institutions. She works from her studio in West Cornwall CT. “The Art of Aging” was selected as an Editor’s Choice in the 2023 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards. It will be published in Paterson Literary Review, Issue #52 (Spring 2024.)
Lightwood 
“Porous “– good poem this oh-so-wet June
“Prompt” — those hooves never get spent and the head keeps rearing
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