Lately,

by Laure-Anne Bosselaar

                when a branch pulls at my sleeve

like a child’s tug, or the fog, reticent & thick,

lifts—& strands of it hang like spun sugar

in branches & twigs, or when a phoebe

trills from the hackberry,

                                            I believe such luck

is meant for me. Does this happen to you?

Do you believe at times that a moment

chooses you to remember it & tell about it—

so that it may live again?

First published in Lily Poetry Review, #7, Winter 2022, and on Vox Populi on 11 June 2022. Also in The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace & Renewal, edited by James Crews (North Adams, Massachusetts: Storey Publishing, 2023, page 22). I am reminded of Anaïs Nin, who said, “We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect,” and of Mary Oliver, whose “Instructions for living a life” were to “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”