All summer, I’ve been strangling
to listen
to attend
to risk
meaning as a means toward
invention, which means the fanciful
intuitive is always just
out of reach.
Poolside, memory swims
through the mirage of
heat
above water,
I know I have made you stop
and tread for me. That image, the father
draping us with a unity
lasso, twenty-two years back.
Its invisibility holds
The pearls less polished,
but the chain untarnished. I’ve also begun
Listing—about everything. Things done. Things
Not yet. Gratitudes. Groceries. Things remembered.
Those I don’t want to.
I am never alone now, but in the pale light
of a new afternoon which has ebbed to a
emotion of dull calm, I inquire of myself
a warmth for soulness
a chance to be present
which means I am grateful for you
always offering me the time
I need to make sense.
Author Bio:
Jenn Gutiérrez considers herself a child of the woods—her forts still hold. She has spent the last six years pursing her doctoral degree in Curriculum Studies & Teaching from the University of Denver, but she also holds a MFA in creative writing from Southampton College, LIU. She has two collections of poetry: Weightless (2005, out of print) and Silence Imbibed (2011, Anaphora Literary Press) and has had work published in various journals including The Texas Review, The Acentos Review, Bacopa Literary Review, and others. Her latest passion is the combining of her scholarly interests as a qualitative researcher and her experience as a poet, aspiring to join the ranks of arts-based researchers such as Eliot Eisner, Tom Barone, and P. Bruce Uhrmacher.
to listen
to attend
to risk
meaning as a means toward
invention, which means the fanciful
intuitive is always just
out of reach.
Poolside, memory swims
through the mirage of
heat
above water,
I know I have made you stop
and tread for me. That image, the father
draping us with a unity
lasso, twenty-two years back.
Its invisibility holds
The pearls less polished,
but the chain untarnished. I’ve also begun
Listing—about everything. Things done. Things
Not yet. Gratitudes. Groceries. Things remembered.
Those I don’t want to.
I am never alone now, but in the pale light
of a new afternoon which has ebbed to a
emotion of dull calm, I inquire of myself
a warmth for soulness
a chance to be present
which means I am grateful for you
always offering me the time
I need to make sense.
Author Bio:
Jenn Gutiérrez considers herself a child of the woods—her forts still hold. She has spent the last six years pursing her doctoral degree in Curriculum Studies & Teaching from the University of Denver, but she also holds a MFA in creative writing from Southampton College, LIU. She has two collections of poetry: Weightless (2005, out of print) and Silence Imbibed (2011, Anaphora Literary Press) and has had work published in various journals including The Texas Review, The Acentos Review, Bacopa Literary Review, and others. Her latest passion is the combining of her scholarly interests as a qualitative researcher and her experience as a poet, aspiring to join the ranks of arts-based researchers such as Eliot Eisner, Tom Barone, and P. Bruce Uhrmacher.
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