Sarah Rossiter

It was midnight when we saw them,
such unexpected bright abundance,
we thought at first we must be dreaming,
the night itself lit from within as if
...

Who knows why the fledglings died—
slowly—lingering even now in the nest
built in the clothespin bag hanging from
a nail on the porch while the frantic
...

Around the edge lace filigree shatters
at the slightest touch, shards scattering
like broken glass, but farther out the ice
is thick, immobilized by Arctic cold,
...

If, at the breakfast table,
I had not looked up just
as the red fox, burnished
coat glinting, trotted past,
white-tipped tail carried
like a flag, I would have
...

This is the season when trees
Stand naked, stamped in sharp
Shadow on still-green grass.
This is the time between living
And dying.

This year I find the river slowed,
The trout gone missing, insects too,
The yellow lily, broken-stemmed,
No wild rose or river otter, no
...

1914–1943

Seated before the woodstove,
bold tongues of fire licking
the glass door, I wonder
what it was like for the first
person to discover she had
...

In this uncertain human season,
I sometimes shiver with despair,
And yet today, a cold dark dawn,
A flock of migrants burst through
Mist, winged flames of orange,
...

Though some might think it heresy
I confess it troubles me that though
He said to those He led that a grapevine
can’t grow figs, isn’t that just what
...

When spring comes,
The Body wakes,
Flesh of our flesh
Without whom nothing
Would exist.

Waking to winter’s dawn
the room drained of color,
except for neon numbers—
6:14—blinking on the bruise
of the bureau against a pale
wall while out the window,
...

This is the season:
Cradle of quiet,
Trees, waiting,
Naked on the hill,
Branches entwined
Like lovers holding
Hands.

After the Birth,
The season of light—
Out of the darkness,
The moonflower opens,
Luminous, petals
Unfurling in the night,
As the star beckons,
...

“Where are we?” she asks again and again.
“Home” says my father at 103, his faculties
Grounded, rooted in flesh despite being
On hospice, his heart giving out with
...

Consider the paper on which
I write, and, however hidden,
all it contains: in the forest,
the tree, the person who felled it,
those at the pulp mill, the mothers,
...

When I pray I go in, and close the door,
But what, really, do we mean by prayer?
Isn’t it anything done with full attention
Whether sinking into silent depths, or
...

Every Thursday Feed Your Spirit meets
in Old South Church, street people,
struggling, wander in, this time to bake
communion bread, the men learning to mix
...

In the prayer room there is only
the faint ticking of the heater
cooling, the salt lamp’s gentle
glow reflected on the glass-topped
...