Laurie Byro

Woodcock

Maybe it rained all night. In the morning,
the sea, brackish and choppy, fences your ride.
Words whistle in your ears, twenty-five miles
from home. You come across a woodcock,
dead, dropped from an envious ocean wind.
You spread its wing in the holy way St. Francis
whispered protection, the way I whisper trust.
My mouth fills with rain and I write you again.

My feet are twigs come to a mysterious end.
You will be denounced for not flinging her back
into woodland. None of us should be spared
winter. You pose her, a tattered queen among
sea grass and bluff clover. Written on the edge
of a cliff my story lies for all the world to read.

Laurie has been facilitating “Circle of Voices” poetry discussion in New Jersey libraries for over 16 years. She is published widely in University presses in the United States and is recently in an anthology:  St. Peter's B List.  Laurie has garnered more IBPC awards (InterBoard Poetry Community) than any other poet, currently 47. Two books of poetry were published in 2015"Luna" by Aldrich Press and "Gertrude Stein's Salon and Other Legends" by Blue Horse Press. In 2016, Laurie received a New Jersey Poet's Prize for the first poem in the Stein book.