By Kathie Fiveash

The human heart meets the heart of nature in these poems by writer and naturalist Kathie Fiveash. Human love and loss are woven together with the abiding beauty and complexity of the natural world. Experiences of loss and grief are tempered by gratitude and the will to go on. The imposed solitude of the pandemic finds its way into these poems, along with the strength and comfort the poet finds in immersing herself in her lifelong connections to earth, sea, sky and wild creatures.

Blanket

Take every leaf on every tree
and put its tired green to bed,
and when the green has gone to sleep
and red and yellow lift their heads,

set them shining in the sky,
wild against the blue expanse.
Loosen them and let them fly,
stir the wind until they dance

in airy swirls. Then lay them down
under the gentle hands of rain.
Turn their colors all to brown,
decompose their withered veins,

press them drenched in sodden layers,
freeze them with your icy sighs,
bless them with your wintery prayers.
Under them the springtime lies.

Kathie Fiveash has an intimate knowledge of her subjects—the human heart and the complex beauty of the natural world. Her deep knowledge of land, sea and sky and all the organisms that inhabit them lends a rare perspective to her work. Her subjects are accessible and familiar—burning embers, the arrival of spring, the poignancy of loss—but her extraordinary lyricism in describing them makes an indelible imprint on the heart.

—Mary Holland, award-winning author of Naturally Curious: A Photographic Field Guide and Month-By-Month Journey Through the Fields, Woods, and Marshes of New England, and the popular nature blog “Naturally Curious with Mary Holland.”

These poems straddle the pure joy found in nature and the inevitability of loss. Through impassioned observations of her physical surroundings, Kathie Fiveash calls up images that perfectly balance the duplicity of extravagance and simplicity of raw emotion.

—Linda Greenlaw, author

Ask the author: Click here to read about Kathie Fiveash’s thoughts on poetry and the process of writing it.