Issue 5.1
Winter 2025
Sheila Griffin
Reflection
Writing poems is a delight. Writing poems is hard. To get to the core, I perhaps over-revise, and I no longer save earlier drafts. I'm a slow learner, a late bloomer?, a Capricorn looking forward to the age of Aquarius, hoping it really is a thing, a positive thing.
The Way of It
​
Sometimes my soul wants to move things along.
It gets down to the impermanence of the routine.
​
Daily life gets a hold on the tug and pull
of the inner world and I clash with earth.
​
I’m weak and blurry enough to go down
without history or substance, so I name the clouds
​
to give them history and substance. The wind
on a good-bones day with an outside voice.
​
Times I know at least one other force
besides our own can tear this place apart.
​
A self portrait painted by love would be helpful.
Its true face such a lonely lonely sanctuary.
​
Giving up its own victory. Walking down,
dead of winter, to catch a bus
​
even if there is no bus. Well, I asked to live
in the quiet. All the time I gave away for free.
​
Hug my chest. Feel my heart in there
pounding away unnamed, my hero.
A 1986 graduate of the U of Iowa Writers Workshop, Sheila Griffin (Llanas) has worked as receptionist, ashramite, college lecturer, textbook writer, library circulation technician, visual artist—and poet. She's had poems published (decades ago) in Agni, American Poetry Review, Poetry Northwest and others.
Sheila's Book Recommendations
The Ruins of Nostalgia by Donna Stonecipher
Who Whispered Near Me by Killarney Clary
Great Exodus, Great Wall, Great Party by Chessy Normile