Gloria Heffernan
Gloria Heffernan’s most recent full-length poetry collection is Fused (Shanti Arts Publishing). Her craft book, Exploring Poetry of Presence (Back Porch Productions) won the CNY Book Award for Nonfiction. She received the 2022 Naugatuck River Review Narrative Poetry Prize. Gloria is the author of the collections Peregrinatio: Poems for Antarctica (Kelsay Books), and What the Gratitude List Said to the Bucket List, (New York Quarterly Books). Her work has appeared in over 100 publications including Poetry of Presence (vol. 2).
Meditation on the Northern Lights
I saw the Northern Lights tonight,
pointing the way to Ojibwa country
where giveaways free the soul
of its earthly burdens,
and miigwech is the word
for thank you.
Halfway between Milwaukee
and Lac du Flambeau,
we pulled over to the shoulder of the road
to watch the lights rise up across the sky
waving in shimmering sheets
of iridescent green
like the wings of a million lunar moths
flying headlong into the stars.
I saw the Northern Lights tonight,
and when a mere thank you
simply wouldn’t do.
I borrowed that word,
Miigwech,
as mysterious, as luminous
as those lights.
My pulse beats in time
with that cosmic ballet,
a gift too vast to be contained,
impossible to bear alone,
So I pass the memory on to you,
a giveaway of sorts,
unburdening my soul
from the weight
of an unshared story.
