Guidelines



Submission Guidelines: Send unpublished poems in the body of an email (NO ATTACHMENTS) to nvneditor[at]gmail.com. No simultaneous submissions. Use "Verse News Submission" as the subject line. Send a brief bio. No payment. Authors retain all rights after 1st-time appearance here. Scroll down the right sidebar for the fine print.

Sunday, February 16, 2014

WHITHER WEATHER #2: FIRE OR ICE

by Tricia Knoll


Image source: KXL


The poet weighed the ends of flame and freeze
as if the fulcrum balanced between love and hate.

We are coming to know enough of both
to see the crux is fog of mind and sloth.

The west burns, the south freezes,
the ice is a river we cannot push.

Fire takes the wildwood
we saw first in black and white

now mixed sooty ash and snow.
The glaciers melt like films

children will never see,
the peaches they will not eat.


Tricia Knoll is a Portland poet, snowbound alone in her house for seven days. Her chapbook Urban Wild is now available from Finishing Line Press.