Vox Populi
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Jane McCafferty: In the Winter of 2025
Who is making time for you/ who knows/ time is clay/can be shaped/
into bowls/ placed on wooden tables/ under sky/ that is impossible/ to love/
too much/ who now will lean/in close/ closer/ what wise dark/tree stands guard/
over your life/ maybe time/ is a pack of wolves running toward a burning /cliff/
yesterday someone bowled/ me/ over/rushing he was/to save the world/ or perhaps/
to get a medium/rare hamburger/ it hurt to find myself/down/on the sidewalk/and yet/
I wanted/ to stay/ wanted to be/ sidewalk/ fixture/ sky/ considerer/ and mostly wanted/
to pray/ who might fall/ and sing with me/ gather/ the skittery soul/ place it/ in a cradle/
make it whole/ like when I was blessed/ by a small owl/ in a Bloomfield alleyway/ good glorious/
has to mean/ something/ I could not stop/ smiling/ had the owl chosen me/ wanting/ owl to
choose/ everyone/ of course/ I started longing/ to be blessed/ again/ again/ though clouds be lit-
rimmed/with shattered glass/ soon we’ll buy/ groceries/ will we/ for the terrified hiding/ then
someone knock/me/ down again/ I want to feel/ I’m just/a human/ not tremulous/American.
~~~~
Jane McCafferty is an American novelist, poet, and short story writer. Her many books include Thank You for the Music. (HarperCollins. 2004). She lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Copyright 2025 Jane McCafferty
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I want to feel/ I’m just/a human/ not tremulous/American.
Or a tremulous Israeli…beautiful, painful, poem, it meets every heart, wherever it is…on a pavement. in a war zone, in a safe room…
Thank you!
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Warming to read Jane’s work again. It lifts us. Am glad for the never-ending lines. Truly exciting poem and prose and speech. Reminds me there is a true DEAD POETS SOCIETY. We all echo these voices. You approach all so carefully. Thank you for this poem. Regards to you the person. Rosaly
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Thanks, Rosaly. Your voice is important…
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Golly … I am enchanted by this one, and keep returning to these lines:
“gather/ the skittery soul/ place it/ in a cradle/
make it whole/ like when I was blessed/ by a small owl/”
Strangely, I was out with some birdwatchers yesterday and we witnessed for a few minutes the presence of an attentive burrowing owl. Every owl seems to me to be a blessing.
Thanks for this poem.
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YES!!!! Enchanted is the right response to this poem. It feels magical to me.
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Thanks, Annie. I agree: every owl is a blessing.
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Annie, I just came across your poem “When I say I owe my life to dead poets, I really mean it (Part 1)” What a marvelous poem, so wise about the necessity of this art.
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Golly! thank you for saying so … I am so glad the poem spoke to you. I will have quite a collection by the time I am ready to complete this sequence: I am forever in debt to oodles of poets, and I am quite sure I do not exaggerate when I say I am still alive because I lean into works by Hopkins, Dickinson, Shakespeare, Housman, Bishop, Rilke, and others. (Now more than ever, too.)
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beautiful! And so perfect for right now! Thanks!
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