Poem by Jane Grovijahn

The Blue light of Hunger

        Blue lies hidden
        wrapped in layers of sky
        where community gathers.
        A constancy of call becomes morning
        offering a familiarity of longing.
        Shared aloneness,
        set in silhouette
        brokered by hummingbird’s flight
        saturates woodpecker’s echo.
        In this symphony,
        silence speaks.
        She sits in brutality
        beaten by blistering sun, ghosted and ghastly.
        Nothing but an old blue comforter
        between her
        and the earth’s hard misery,
        portioned to those
        placed deeply alone. She sits entirely still, not carried by life nor death,
        but deranged by a violence no one can name.
        Set in silhouette,
        brokered by unseeing eyes
        mourning calls,
        hanging onto forgotten elegies, now a distant echo,
        silenced by the burning sun of hunger.

THEME: Childhood Hunger

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A queer survivor, Jane Grovijahn, needs language to be daily bread. Surrounded by granite and green, she listens to the laughter of trees daily. For her, poetry is a way to rest in beauty while living into possibility.

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