Clade Song 10

Self-Portrait as a Green Heron

There is a Gregorian chant
in my left ear; when I take my morning
walk it drowns out all the sorrows.

Deaf in one ear, blind
in one eye--that's the curse
I've always feared.

(My father's spirit was deaf--
he couldn't hear what our hearts were
singing over our morning tea.)

When I am alone I play
the harmonica; no one to elude
except myself.

I am like the green
heron, a timid bird in secluded
ponds, seeking cover.

Susan Kelly-DeWitt is a former Wallace Stegner Fellow and the author of Gravitational Tug (Main Street Rag, forthcoming 2020), Spider Season (Cold River Press, 2016), The Fortunate Islands (Marick Press, 2008) and nine previous small press collections and online chapbooks. Her work has appeared in many anthologies, and in print and online journals at home and abroad. She is cutrrently a member of the National Book Critics Circle and the Northern California Book Reviewers Association. For more information, please visit her website at www.susankelly-dewitt.com.