Sanctuary
Before entering the woods alone along
resolved riverbed, I hid my bicycle behind
the creek’s bridge. Softened under spring’s
worm moon, braced for nettle’s greetings,
I hopped over cracked clay mud, under canopy
of cottonwoods, and in the shade I would walk
those hours, whispering my poems. Now under
late October hunter’s moon, this arc, this sanctuary
still silences me, and my shadow passes easily
along the trace as curious clearweed. Again
to pause, small among the sycamores, where
a cacophony of crickets, the stuttering trilling
of frogs, form a chorus of prayers from the marsh.
Laura Schwartz is a librarian in Geneva, Indiana, a small town along the Wabash River surrounded by remnants of the Limberlost Wetlands, so she spends much of her time with books or exploring the nearby nature preserves, especially Rainbow Bottom. She graduated from Indiana University in Bloomington with a BA in Comparative Literature, and has always enjoyed reading and writing poetry. She also studied Library Science at the University of Texas. In more recent years, she has participated in several writing workshops, including three poetry workshops led by former Indiana Poet Laureate, Shari Wagner.