by Doug Bolling

Algae and lily pads in the green
pond of childhood.
How you waded among the minnows
in silence pristine as an unwritten
diary.

The years sliding toward you and
through. The library shelf full.

Those snows of ten years ago.
Anna and you making warmth
in the heavy chill of woods,
their echoes,
their trees of ice
and bark of frozen
branches.

How is it you ask that the
fullness holds even in
the smallness
of hours,
the winds that carry
too much away.

What you take from this isn’t
In words but in the something else
hovering about you
impossible to touch
only to love.


Doug Bolling’s poetry has appeared in numerous literary reviews including Water-Stone Review, Wallace Stevens Journal, Basalt, Poem, Blue Unicorn, The Inflectionist Review, Redactions, BlazeVOX, Chaffin Journal and Gravel Magazine among others. He has received five Pushcart nominations and has degrees from William & Mary and the University of Iowa. He has taught in colleges and universities in the midwest and currently lives in the greater Chicago area. He is a native of Kentucky and has published short fiction and poetry set in the mountains of Appalachia.