Scrubbing a sorrowful passage
in the ancient stairwell, she pauses
by the leaded window
to watch geese like windblown paper
lift and curve into the air.
Setting her brush on the stone
step, she runs for bread
to scatter on the grass,
thick and sweet beside
the black moat —
kneels there, begging,
calling them back
About the Author: Wendy McVicker lives and writes in the beautiful green hills of Athens, Ohio. In her poetry, she seeks "to honor memory and the slow, deep process of knowing." Her poems have appeared in Appalachian Women's Journal, Confluence, Riverwind, and Whiskey Island, among others. She is a teaching poet with the Ohio Arts Council's Arts in Education program, and has been inciting poetry in schools, libraries, galleries, and community centers since 1987.
Copyright © 2008 by Wendy McVicker. This poem may not be reproduced in any form without the author's express written permission.