by Anne Perry
Some Mothers’ Daughters are Birds
My daughter is in the backyard
digging
a mole in the dark earth
tunnelling
to nowhere and everywhere
revealing
substratum that changes color with depth
brightening
becoming sandy, three feet deep and
growing
her eyes in the loamy shadows
softening
young arms, muscles, the garden shovel
guiding
I can’t look away
fearing
dirt walls
collapsing
and even then while other daughters are
winging
lofty and feathered
fluttering
mine is sending roots
grounding
her sanctuary of soil
Sarah CR Clark is a writer and former Lutheran pastor living in Minnesota. She is a winner of the St. Paul Sidewalk Poetry Contest and has published poetry in the St. Paul Almanac; newspaper articles in the Park Bugle; and theological writings with Augsburg Fortress Press. A certified Master Naturalist, she can often be found adventuring with her family near Lake Superior.
Anne Perry, a former psychotherapist, brings 13 years of exploring the human condition to her emerging art and literary career. Now a photographer and writer of journalistic articles, fiction, and creative non-fiction, she focuses on the eerie and ethereal, human interest stories, true crime, crime fiction, and vintage true crime, with a particular interest in historical cases from the last century. Anne holds a B.A. in English, an M.A. in Communications, both from the State University of New York, and an MSW from Adelphi University. She lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina with her two cats.