By Shirley Geok-lin Lim
(The Holiday Fire, Goleta—July 7, 2018)
skies
with no clouds
skies
bleached by sun
skies
heavy with winds
skies
black in the hills
skies
red in the blue
skies
hissing in brush
skies
crackling in branch
skies
noisy with wings
skies
dry with white rain
skies
roofless, rueful—
only
sky.
Shirley Geok-lin Lim’s Crossing the Peninsula received the British Commonwealth Poetry Prize, first for a woman and Asian. She has 10 poetry collections, recently The Irreversible Sun, Ars Poetica for the Day, and Do You Live In? Her poems are published in Hudson Review, Feminist Studies, Virginia Quarterly Review, and more; featured by Bill Moyers, Tracey K. Smith’s Slowdown, and performed in Poetry Out Loud. Also by this poet: "Prayer for Coyote" and "Social Distancing"