The Jump
written by: Laurie Kuntz
@laurie_kuntz
When my son coaxed me to jump
from high off the ocean pier,
I fell into the salty cocoon of sea rush.
When I sliced the surface,
he yelled, “There’s a poem in this,”
which has me thinking of all the jumps
I still need to make—
all the poems, I still need to write
on days such as today—rare days
when summer air squeezes through the eye
of a late August afternoon, and I find myself
among a strangle of orange nasturtium
ebbing in a waning garden, and Sage,
named for his colored coat pokes
his beige, spun–to- grey snout
into the breeze, and I am spinning
in a world of steel blue heavens,
and radiant petunias coupled in summer hues.
There’s just too much color in this turning.
It’s time– not jumping, but lunging,
once again, into the deep blue crystal.
Laurie Kuntz is an award-winning poet and film producer. She taught creative writing and poetry in Japan, Thailand and the Philippines. Many of her poetic themes are a result of her working with Southeast Asian refugees for over a decade after the Vietnam War years. She has published two poetry collections (The Moon Over My Mother’s House and Somewhere in the Telling), and two chapbooks (Simple Gestures and Women at the Onsen), as well as an ESL reader (The New Arrival, Books 1 & 2). Her poems, Darnella’s Duty and Not Drowning But Waving have been produced in a podcast from LKMNDS and her poem, Darnella's Duty is published in a new Black Lives Matter Anthology. Her two ESL books have been featured on the podcast ESL for Equality. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and her chapbook, Simple Gestures, won the Texas Review Poetry Chapbook Contest. She has produced documentaries on the repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Law, and currently is a researcher/producer for a documentary on the Colombian peace process and reintegration of guerrilla soldiers in Colombia. She is the executive producer of an Emmy winning short narrative film, Posthumous. Recently retired, she lives in an endless summer state of mind.
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