Kelley Jean White
Seventy Degrees in April
There is this buzzing that is the world:
insects, a bee, just outside my window,
wind, leaves moving in the wind, a little tick
tick tick of flower petals falling on pebbles,
someone's windchimes, a dog's footsteps,
a cat calling to another cat, my neighbor's
tin roof lifting creaking just a little in the sun.
Do I see what I hear? Do I sniff the wind
and grow a little wilder? Do I taste the pollen
spinning in the warming air? Do I listen to
my own breath, my own bones cracking,
the ringing always whispering in my seashell
ear? I am well. I am going to heal.
Bio
Pediatrician Kelley White has worked in inner city Philadelphia and rural New Hampshire. Her poems have appeared in Exquisite Corpse, Rattle and JAMA. Her most recent collection is No Hope Street (Kelsay Books). She received a 2008 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant.