SHELTER by Renee Podunovich

Shelter

 

I don’t know if I know

how to listen to silences so old,

quietude contained within rock

crafted into brick, held in a mortar

of mud and pebbles, bound

in ancient spring water and clay.

 

            Minds speculate:

            what must have been, what still is,

the living traditions we struggle to maintain,

how we find and lose meaning,

place and displace our humanness,

forget our belonging on the earth, strive

then and now to survive. 

 

Thunder in the cradle of the canyon.

A few drops of rain land on my cheeks

and on high desert dust.

            I let cool wind brush my hair, caress my brow, 

            let my head rest in the laps of ancient women

who made comfort out of a landscape,

out of their call to nurture life.

I don’t want to know

anything but this stillness,

this moment away from the entire world,

            this gap in time.

 

I could settle here, let exhausted bones

and my burning, broken-down heart

relax into stasis 

next to grinding stones

unused now for hundreds of years—

they offer just the hint of the effort it takes

to be well and thrive in this life,

            to bear witness to change,

            to know ends will come,

            stopping points. 

 

Invisibility invites each one of us

            into its grace, as graceful 

as alcoves of stone in rainstorms,

inside the shelter of awe.

(This poem first appeared in the author's third chapbook, “Illustrious for Brief Moments”, published in February of 2021. Click here for your own copy!) 

Renee Podunovich is a poet and freelance writer living in southwest Colorado. She has three chapbooks of poems:“Illustrious for Brief Moments” (Finishing Line Press, 2021), “Let the Scaffolding Collapse” (Finalist of the New Women’s Voices Chapbook Competition by Finishing Line Press, 2012) and “If There Is a Center No One Knows Where It Begins” (Art Juice Press, 2008).  She is the 2019 Cantor Award winner for the best poem by a Coloradoan in the Fischer Prize awarded by the Telluride Literary Festival. Her poems were nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2010 and 2011. Renee believes that poetry is a language that encourages us to transcend our constricted sense of self and connect to our essential nature within and the living intelligence of the world around us. Renee facilitates Well Writing: Wordcraft for Discovery, Wholeness & Connection workshops that are designed to use creative writing as a tool for centering, reflecting and for personal growth. Visit Renee's website here, and her blog here. 

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