STIRRING
Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.
Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.
Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.
Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.
CATHY BARBER
a golden shovel after Richard Wright*
Here in Captiva, birds! Upon
a man-made pole and platform, a
scraggly nest and an unwary osprey. Nearby pine
and mangrove hide herons—each mangrove tree
a collection of prop roots and new growth. A
foraging sea snail
in a whelk slides
in the sand, then contracts like a heart out
of the world to the safety of
its armor. My heart is all out of its
shell—the cancer a blessing. I shell
out woes and the world responds. To
my nausea, rash, pain, neuropathy, I witness,
no, accept, such love from every direction—the
cancerous breast, a font, a spring.
*as found in Haiku: The Last Poems of an American Icon; Arcade Publishing.
Cathy Barber’s poetry has been published in the journals Slant, SLAB, The Hopper, Kestrel, the anthologies Rewilding: Poems for the Environment, Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California, The Cancer Poetry Project Vol 2, and has been nominated for a Best of the Net. Her first full length poetry book, Once: A Golden Shovel Collection will be published in early 2023 by Kelsay Press. Her abecedarian chapbook is Aardvarks, Bloodhounds, Catfish, Dingoes (Dancing Girl Press, 2018). She is a graduate of the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA program and makes her home in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. www.cathybarber.com
