Turning

This entry is part 59 of 93 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Summer 2011

Crepe myrtle clumps barely luminous in their sheen,
streaked jacaranda in the aftermath of rain—
Floss of cerise and magenta, ruffled anew in green

arms of trees. The air’s moist; this is how we know
change is coming. Tiny hairs on the nape, antennae
trembling. Stand in the driveway, listen: undertow,

swell of that wave furling. Autumn’s dark boat
has already pushed off. The turquoise sea is laced
with kelp and driftwood. Summer turns its coat

sleeves out, and makes a promise the way you do:
no vows, no witnesses but for a few letters
in the sand. But I row, you row; we both do.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Series Navigation← Distance, ThenNoon Prayer →

Poet Luisa A. Igloria (Poetry Foundation web page, author webpage ) was recently appointed Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Virginia (2020-2022). She is Co-Winner of the 2019 Crab Orchard Open Competition in Poetry for Maps for Migrants and Ghosts (Southern Illinois University Press, September 2020). She is the winner of the 2015 Resurgence Prize (UK), the world’s first major award for ecopoetry, selected by former UK poet laureate Sir Andrew Motion, Alice Oswald, and Jo Shapcott. She is the author of What is Left of Wings, I Ask (2018 Center for the Book Arts Letterpress Chapbook Prize, selected by former US Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey); Bright as Mirrors Left in the Grass (Kudzu House Press eChapbook selection for Spring 2015), Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser (Utah State University Press, 2014 May Swenson Prize), Night Willow (Phoenicia Publishing, 2014), The Saints of Streets (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, 2013), Juan Luna’s Revolver (2009 Ernest Sandeen Prize, University of Notre Dame Press), and nine other books. She is a member of the core faculty of the MFA Creative Writing Program at Old Dominion University which she directed from 2009-2015; she also teaches classes at The Muse Writers’ Center in Norfolk. In 2018, she was the inaugural Glasgow Distinguished Writer in Residence at Washington and Lee University. When she isn’t writing, reading, or teaching, she cooks with her family, knits, hand-binds books, and listens to tango music.