Rebirth

The lovely morning washed me clean.
Doves and chickadees were singing in the rain.
Water blessed my feet.

I am not altogether holy,
nor would I espouse to be such.
But the rain makes me feel I could come clean,

in the long leaf of my life,
say sorry to those I may have hurt.
When morning wraps me in its cape of fog
as though earth were exhaling,

I think wings could become me,
not the angel kind, rather a magnificent raven
as it dives and rolls, wings tucked, purposefully earthward

simply because it loves what’s found here.

 

 

Dianna Mackinnon Henning’s work has been published in The Moth, Ireland; Sukoon, Volume 5; Mojave River Review; the New Verse News; Hawaii Pacific Review; Sequestrum; South Dakota Review; Naugatuck River Review; Lullwater Review; The Kentucky Review; Blue Fifth Review; The Main Street Rag; Clackamas Literary Review; 22 wagons by Danijela Trajković, Istok Akademia, an anthology of contemporary Anglophone poetry; California Quarterly; Poetry International and Fugue. Three-time Pushcart nominee. New work due out 2019 in New American Writing, The Kerf. Henning taught through California Poets in the Schools, received several CAC grants, and taught poetry workshops through the William James Association’s Prison Arts Program. Henning’s third poetry book, Cathedral of the Hand, was published in 2016 by Finishing Line Press.