Is There Anyone in America
Who hasn’t tasted the rust-colored sky
and sought to lozenge the throat
and smother a slight cough—
a crush and choke so much like grief—
knowing all the while about far-off wildfires
but trying, trying, trying
not to plot a graph or solve the calculus
of California or Canada or wherever the next Texas-size space burns
or hasn’t worried about
what the width and heft of sky-high blanket might portend
?
…
This poem is from the chapbook Is There Anyone in America? by Pamela Smith (Finishing Line Press), and can be found at https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/is-there-anyone-in-america-by-pamela-smith/
Pamela Smith has been writing since her early teens. Along with books and articles dealing with biblical spirituality, environmental ethics, theology, and church life, she has continued her enchantment with poetry. Is There Anyone in America? Is her third chapbook publication with Finishing Line Press. The author is currently the Ecumenical and Interreligious Officer for the Catholic Diocese of Charleston and a member of the adjunct faculty in theology with Saint Leo University. She is a member of the Sisters of Saints Cyril and Methodius and has lived with other sisters in her community in Bluffton, South Carolina since 2004.
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