Anne Kenny
Refuge
Our home is a small island, with a shoreline
no stranger can cross. Its rooms,
unused to such constancy, wonder why we seldom leave.
Why suitcases gather dust and goods are quarantined.
Windows look out on a sea of long grass, afloat
with daises and dandelions. Here all is new life:
improbable pink petals on the trunk of a Judas tree,
sprays of lady’s mantle spreading across shingle,
the scarlet poppy flirting among artichokes.
Some days we walk to where ancient yews
are gathered in a churchyard. They’ve seen it all before.
Pestilence, the carrying of coffins. Renewal.
—Submitted on 06/12/2020
Anne Kenny‘s work has appeared in Equinox, South, Blue Dog Australian Poetry, Contemporary Haibun Online, and other journals. Along with co-authors Judith Dimond, Nicky Gould, Frances Knight, Gillian Moyes, Lyn White, and Vicky Wilson, Kenny’s work appears in Mirror Writing: An Anthology of Poetry by Common Room Poets (Categorical Books, 2009).
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