Shopping Cart
    items

      ←

      March 19, 2017HappyNanci Lee

      You told me that I am not happy
      or not someone you think of as
       
      happy and I sense that it came from
      love or something wanting to be
       
      near it. I struck back when what
      I wish I’d said was that young
       
      Saglana from the Taiga forest
      walked five miles at minus 34
       
      to get help for her grandma.
      She was four and alone along
       
      frozen banks. No fear of
      wolves. Nothing but a tight
       
      fist of matches, trekking tundra
      and carrying fire that I see and
       
      words turn me back
      into song a throat song some
       
      lit thing nearer is all
      if you’d asked.

      from Poets Respond

      Nanci Lee

      “This poem is about a young Tuva girl, Saglana Salchak, from the Taiga forest in Siberia near the Mongolian border, who traveled hours to get help for her sick grandmother. She traveled several miles across frozen tundra and river banks high with snowdrifts filled with wolves. I thought about girls in fairy tales, happiness and helplessness and how wonderfully life frustrates these boxes.”

      →