“So real it sears my hands, this / drawing, Celtic oak of two minds . . . .”
Kathleen McCoy – Poetry – “Green and Burning (Dar Glas Agus a Dho)” from Kathleen McCoy on Vimeo.
Cookies, candles, cards, and cash . . . with all our running amuck
at the holidays, it’s easy to forget those who have grieved in the past year, or who grieve most at the holidays. 
This year, before you pack up or sit back for your joyful holiday, please remember friends who quietly hunker down in blue corners behind the silver and gold. What can help them? A shoulder, a note, a cup o’ joe or tea . . . and poetry.
More Water Than Words is a chapbook in which “death is considered . . . in the mythical realm of change and possibility” (Marilyn McCabe). Preorders have been extended to Monday, December 26th for this plunge into imagination where an island disappears and reemerges, sheep change color, green trees burst into flame, and “even smudges on glass take on the visage of a lost loved one.” I’m grateful to Finishing Line Press for accepting these poems and publishing them, with one condition: I have to meet a minimum number of preorders, and I’m short. If you can help someone you know in 2017, you’ll also be helping poems enter the world at their appointed time.
Happy holidays to you. May your days be more vibrant, musical, and peaceful than blue, and may you find a poem or two that speak to you.
in memory of Eva Leah Robinson McCoy
Bite into the apple of love, enjoy its juice
and let the seeds fall all around you.
~
Lips and hands must measure
before they dispense their wares.
~
Set an extra plate for an unexpected guest—
someday it could be you.
~
What you most despise in your sister’s eyes
is what your own reflection reveals.
~
Darkness and rain
bring birdsong.
~
A stately house shrinks beside the simple one
whose walls vibrate with laughter.
~
To stand your tallest,
plant your feet on rock.
~
No one can schedule a natural birth
and it isn’t over when the cries begin.
~
Ask for your desire and when you receive it
offer it up again.
~
When the sun shines, focus its light in your body
and when the rains pour down, the rocks will gleam before you.
~
Take the hands of children for they fix their eyes on you
and when you grow weak they will scoop you into their arms.
~
The race goes to the horse
who runs for utter joy.
Kathleen McCoy
The Real McCoy 