Kim Pollack Poetry

At Night, When the Wind is Blowing (A Poem)

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At Night, When the Wind is Blowing

At night, when the wind is blowing

And the Chestnut’s new leaves are rustling 

I think of the first time I climbed the hill

to this house and met you on the steps.

How the spirit of the place made room for me and

invited me to become part of its story.

I remember happy and conflicted days

of everything new and everything

breaking apart. Of wrenching grief and

the starry-eyed hope of starting over.

And I have started over with you.

Who were the first people to walk over

this ground and build their homes here?

To plant fields and grow food for themselves? 

Did they feel the land welcome them too?

Did they walk down this road, 

when it became a road, hand in hand 

in the moonlight, whispering promises?

Did they kiss under the stars and imagine

a life where every day burned bright 

like a summer afternoon because they had

found their hearts hidden in each other,

and their home in this place?

The land beneath my feet and the sky over my head

have moved on since that day,

unconcerned through the seasons

summer, fall, winter, spring.

How I have changed and how I have remained myself,

how we have grown together and have begun to live out

the truth about us–that we belong to one another,

that Fate put us in each other’s paths.

I think about this and other things,

at night, when the wind is blowing.

Poem by Kim Pollack/©2019 All Rights Reserved

I’m Thinking About Trees (A Poem)

Kim4 Comments

I’m thinking about trees, the ones standing 

at the back of the house. Maples, in particular. 

And how they are so clearly trees and 

are not in the habit of having identity crises. 

They aren’t wondering if they should perhaps

be like the evergreens next to them, or, 

maybe, like the apple trees in the orchard. 

After all, those pines don’t stand naked and 

exposed during the coldest months of the year. 

After all, apple trees have pretty pink blossoms 

in spring and all those juicy apples in fall. 

No, the maples stand sure with their trunks straight, 

while their branches grow out their new green leaves. 

They don’t seem to care if the wind blows fiercely 

against them. They just dance along—their branches 

swaying and bending, their leaves shimmying 

with each gust. They have two aims: to root down 

deep into darkness and to grow up tall toward 

the light.

If anything looks like a prayer to me, 

it’s how a tree lives its uncomplicated life. 

How it gives itself to each day completely, 

as only a tree can. How it stands rooted 

no matter what comes and never tries to be

something it’s not. A tree is itself: a tree.

Poem by Kim Pollack /©2019 All Rights Reserved

For Holy Saturday

Kim1 Comment

I wrote this poem several years ago as I attempted to imagine how the followers of Jesus might have been feeling after his death.

In Between

Where did you go

when you finished, exhaled?

Your last breath, a whisper,

brought madness to earth,

tore sky and ground. Time

stood still, dead walked.

Friends, stunned with your leaving,

stayed close to what remained

of you, your spirit unreachable.

We waited, broken, in silence

for what? We did not know.

A shroud of sorrow

bound us tightly.

We waited and wondered

where did you go?

by Kim Pollack © 2019