THIRD PLACE, TRADITIONAL FORMS:
NEW MOON (SONNET)Where once I held my children to my breast
For comfort warmth and sustenance triune
A holy shrine of feeling all things blessed,
Is now a scar, a silver crescent moon.
I trace the groove and wonder at its feel:
It's me, yet not me, here, yet gone--my flesh
Sensation blurred with numbness now surreal,
A frozen lunarscape of emptiness.
A mother's font of love, of all things warm
Replaced by milky moonbeam memory
A pilgrim's path now etched across my form
Celestial, connecting me to me.
This absence is a presence, still a part
The new moon rests a whisper on my heart.Allison Berryhill
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