Poem of the Month: A Woman Reads a Poem

A Woman Reads a Poem

She finds a leaf between the pages

of poems decades old –

what woman placed you there?

Small brown heart,

one summer afternoon

the chores done, the children gone,

rain, her mute companion,

and this page,

which she encounters

perhaps, as invitation,

requiring reply,

a question parried in thyme,

a signature in verdure

she knows, as she herself

will, fade,

but not – faint hope aroused —

not this moment,

the inscrutable valence

of souls

greening time.