Poetry by B. Fulton Jennes

                ​Flemming Munch CC



See

​A hummingbird hovers 
just outside the kitchen window, 
remembering the kindness
of summers past;
an alchemist bee 
darts home to the hive,
hastening to translate 
pollen and sunshine into pure gold;
a cut heals, leaving no scar;
a lost dog finds its way home;
a child forgives a mother’s unkindness;
a book spurs us to weep;
an artist breeds amazement
out of a gray neuronic slurry;
stars perforate the night sky;
time pumices the jagged edges of grief;
trees reach skyward, waves stroke the shore 
even when tugged by a jealous moon;
hair transmutes to silver;
eggs hatch like prize-filled
bubbles from a gumball machine;
hearts beat, unbidden; 
wheels, windows, sign language, skin--

We are half-asleep fairies,
inhabiting an enchanted land.
We bask in small miracles
each moment of our small lives. 
We see them, touch them,
breathe them in, unaware--

and when we exhale,
the grit of our indifference
polishes the world
for those who see.



The Poet Laureate of Ridgefield, Connecticut, B. Fulton Jennes serves as poet-in-residence for the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. Her poems have or will appear in Anti-Heroin Chic, The Comstock Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Night Heron Barks, Connecticut River Journal, ArtAscent, Tar River Poetry, Stone Canoe, Naugatuck River Journal, Frost Meadow Review, and other publications, and her poem “Lessons of a Cruel Tide” was awarded first place in the Writer’s Digest Annual Competition in the rhyming poetry category. Jennes’s chapbook, Blinded Birds, is now available for preorder from Finishing Line Press. She is in her (blessed) 13th year of recovery; her daughter, now grateful for six years in recovery, recently completed graduate coursework in Addiction Counseling. There is hope.
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