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.
KARI GUNTER-SEYMOUR
After months of bereavement
and rare sightings of sunlight,
today I sat outside in a full-on burst
of it, grateful for the birds,
their flicker and tweet at the feeder.
It is hard to understand, much less
explain, the descent that comes
with loss, how needy it is,
the hundred ways it breaks you,
the spot in the chest that flares.
Just as a sparrow, rattled out
of its nest of stick strewn contemplation,
balances a branch, holds on
to a symphony longer than expected,
or a dandelion releases seed
to the wind, enshrined in strands
of pure flight, I scattered you,
handfuls of ash in the air,
every particle a scamper,
each ascension a trick of the light.
Where I'm from, girls learn
to conjure young—a dash of salt flung,
I lick my pointer finger, spin
three times, call forth the tufted trills
of wild beak and bone flute.
Early on, I partnered up, roused
with hope. What I got was someone
else’s stiff neck, the shape
of someone else’s arrogance
siphoning the pith from my spine.
My hollow bird bones winnow
stories I don’t want to hear,
I shush each saga—too much
prattle, unweighted,
could damn well loose a demon.
Kari Gunter-Seymour is the Poet Laureate of Ohio and a recipient of a 2021 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship. Her poetry collections include A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen (Sheila Na Gig Editions, 2020), which won the 2020 Ohio Poet of the Year Award, and the chapbook Serving (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2018). Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and publications including Rattle, ONE, The LA Times and The New York Times. Her work has been featured on Verse Daily, Cultural Daily, World Literature Today and Poem-a-Day. A ninth generation Appalachian, she is the editor of I Thought I Heard A Cardinal Sing: Ohio’s Appalachian Voices and the Women of Appalachia Project’s anthology series, Women Speak. Gunter-Seymour is the founder, curator, and host of Spoken & Heard, a seasonal performance series featuring poets, writers, and musicians from across the country. She is an artist in residence at the Wexner Center for the Arts and a 2021-22 Pillar of Prosperity Fellow for the Foundation For Appalachian Ohio.
