Widenings
Rain-ripples broaden on the pond,
so many—thousands, it seems—
forming, spreading, meeting, merging,
resolving into a larger pattern.
They remind me of Whitman—those ceaselessly
widening circumferences of his, so full of energy,
so boundless in expansion!
And I wonder whether we, too, are ripples on a pond—
our minds,
perhaps our spirits, if you believe in such a thing—
widening out
the way Walt said, the way the pond does
as each droplet joins the swirling dance—
whether we, too, expand and meet and merge,
and if we do—
what then?
….
This poem is from the chapbook In Such Wonder by Jonel Sallee (Finishing Line Press), and is available at https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/in-such-wonder-by-jonel-sallee/
A Matisse or a Lorrain or a starlit night sky draws you into its canvas and you become part of its story; a haunting melody or the piercing eyes of a songbird hold you; raindrops on a pond or a sudden deluge on an interstate lead you to questions that have no easy answers. These are unexpected, unbidden moments, always fleeting and always challenging to ordinary perception. The poems in In Such Wonder spring from such moments and invite the reader to linger among the crucial questions and contemplations that mystery always evokes.
Jonel Sallee is a lifelong lover of learning and has spent most of her life in academic studies and professional activities. She spent more than forty years teaching English and Arts and Humanities at the middle school, high school, and university levels in Providence, Rhode Island, and in Louisville and Lexington, Kentucky. In addition to professional writings, mainly scholarly essays on interdisciplinary relationships among literature, philosophy, and science, her publications include poems in several anthologies and two previous chapbooks, Trees StandTall and Dimensions.
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