Donna Hilbert
Donna Hilbert’s latest book is Gravity: New & Selected Poems, Tebot Bach, 2018. She is a monthly contributing writer to the on-line journal Verse-Virtual. Poems have appeared in print and on-line venues including Braided Way Magazine, Rattle, Serving House Journal, Chiron Review, A Year of Being Here, Cultural Weekly, Sheila-Na-Gig online, Zócalo Public Square, and numerous anthologies, most recently, Poetry of Presence, Grayson Books. She writes and leads private workshops for both beginners and professional writers in coastal Southern California, where she makes her home, and during her residencies at Write On Door County in Fish Creek, Wisconsin. Learn more at www.donnahilbert.com
Many Bottoms in the Basket of Despair
There are many bottoms in the basket of despair
as many as sparrows dropping (no end in sight)
from the wide and deep blue air.
And who among us even dare
to notice what lies sleeping right
beneath us in the basket of despair?
Remember the old dog, her shedding hair,
the endless sweeping, (day and night)
as if cleaning also cleared the air.
I’ve traveled backroads leading God knows where
without a roadmap, compass, or beam of light.
There are many blind spots in the carriage of despair.
Once, on a riverbank I thought I’d lost you, aware
of what might swipe you from my watchful sight,
I feared you swallowed by the wide and deep blue air.
I’m marking time now, trying just to bear
nightmare days and sleepless nights
lying with the boarders in the casket of despair
uncountable as dust motes in the wide and deep blue air.
Sheila-Na-Gig online 