Elizabeth Kuhlman
Against Despair
If you were to have,
among the pulsing early lights,
also a kid tucked into your blanket
underneath your arm,
a child who asks
what bird is that
and runs her fingers down the index of the field guide through species and sub-species,
careful not to disturb the iridescent damsel fly that lands there,
to find that very bird’s particular page,
then lifts her head to wonder
at the turning of the outer rim of earth,
well, maybe then.
My poems have appeared in "Chants," "Convolvulus," "The Squaw Review," and "The Beloit Poetry Journal." Most notably, my poem, “Solange,” was included in "A Fine Excess: Fifty Years of the Beloit Poetry Journal.” While my career has been in child development and child abuse prevention, my passion has always been poetry.