by Jill Kenny
Not Alone
1.
I still do not know what you found when you looked
through the windows of my soul, into the hull of this sand castle.
I wonder if what you found was just my fear,
or the truth about how women become leaders.
2.
You say you will stay through the storms,
I say it leaks through the thatch, but you remind me,
we cannot leave saving the plants to the environmentalists.
3.
I say it’s a season of grief, you ask me to savor the salt
and see through the tears.
You say we must learn to walk the wilderness,
by seeing the world through the eyes of the Abrahams
who never cast away their lots.
4.
I say I cannot see through silk to silicon,
I say I cannot see through the eyes of innocents.
But you say I am a marooned child at the shoreline of time,
searching through the eyes of Katrina.
You say I must learn never to rush through the days of childhood,
so I am learning to see through the crack,
I am learning through vanishing point, the essence of space.
5.
You ask what I see through flowers,
I say I have never seen through the eyes of an artist.
I ask if you could have your baby through egg donation,
you say it’s all anemophily, your pollination is through the air.
6.
Nne, my doctor who sees life through the patient’s eye,
my teacher who teaches math through nursery rhymes;
at your foot I am learning to appreciate the music.
With the dog’s ear, I am learning to hear God through the noise.
I will convert myself through hymns; I will forgive my sins,
for through your eyes, I realize that I am not alone.
Soonest Nathaniel is a Poet and spoken word artist. He is the author of Teaching My Father How To Impregnate Women, selected as winner of the 2017 RL Poetry Award. He was poet Laureate for 2014 Korea Nigeria Poetry Festival. His poems appear or are forthcoming in The Pedestal Magazine, Praxis Mag, Raven Chronicles, Wiki Column, Saraba, Loudthotz, Northridge Review, Reverbnation, Elsewhere, Scintilla, Erbacce UK, Kalahari Review, Sentinel Nigeria, and many more.
Jill Kenny is an multidisciplinary artist and writer from Tipperary, Ireland with a B.A. in English and a first class honours in a M.Sc. in Multimedia. In 2019 she was shortlisted for the Trócaire/Poetry Ireland, The Black Horse and Over the Edge New Writer of the Year Competitions. She was awarded an artist residency at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in 2020. Themes of the public vs. private persona, society and relationship to environment frequent her work. For more visit: www.jillchloekenny.com