Radiant Blues by Joan Howard

My dear friend and fellow poet, Joan M. Howard, has published this beautiful book of poems, Radiant Blues.

Being a woman of a certain age—like me—Joan's subjects are relatable to ageing, and beautifully written. She lost her husband to illness some years ago, and that has also been a bond between us. I admire her for many reasons, one of which is that she kayaks on Lake Chatuge. She walks on the dam almost every day. She keeps moving outdoors. She lives on the lake and has easy access to the water.

Insight

by Joan Howard  

If he could see home now, what would he think?  

Cobwebs in his study, meticulous  

order through the workshop littered—clutter  

on his saws! The deck chair from pressurized wood  

he built her, gray and broken in the yard.  

"You don't like change," he said; she had preserved  

it all—every bowl, table, tray, jigsawed  

masterpiece, and his ashes by her bed.  

But yet, outside had transformed.  

Camellias he'd planted from pots as tall as some trees,  

magnolia, lilies, gardenia blooming,  

sparse brown lawn grass a soft green moss cover.  

If he looks, she sees him everywhere, in  

the weathered trellis, spring daffodils—his?

Three Women on the Dam

We walked for years, three women on the dam—  

divorced or married, widowed. We all knew  

each other well—three miles, four days a week,  

kept secrets of suffering, heroics.  

Once Kathy said that sun and cloud could make  

a living halo in daylight. I scoffed.  

Years later though, in heavy morning mist,  

low eastern sun behind us, it was there:  

our three heads surrounded by green-gold light,  

distinguished each one, bodies a pure black  

in shadowed pantomime, our heads radiant,  

transformed, moments long, an epiphany.  

                                        ----Joan Howard