Background: From the outset of her days as language arts teacher for the Delaware, Ohio City Schools, Barbara Humphreys has enjoyed writing and reading poetry with middle school and high school students. After retirement, she began attending critique groups in Clearwater, Florida, and writing regularly. With one chapbook in print and another in process, she finds that the struggle to write is a necessary part of life. She says, "Magical things happen when I search the depths of the subconscious for true insights while developing a heightened sensitivity to life around me." Being part of poetry groups has been an important part of her efforts to grow toward becoming a poet. This will be an exciting new aspect to that effort.
This Summer

Our lawn is strewn with tree droppings:
skeletal branches clusters of fresh leaves
mossy chunks of heavy limbs
thrown down in rage of wind and lightning
in thunderstorm after thunderstorm.
Quiet night rains drench the soil.

This summer –
so wet and cool
rots roots
forms fragile plant spindles ... seeking light
shrinks buds within green sepals.

I feel like a plant.
My roots are rotting.
My poetic buds shrink
from need of sun and balmy breezes
to lighten heavy thoughts.

Yet how can I complain?
The sun is there behind the clouds.

July 18, 2003
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