From the Current Issue -- American Poet Mindy Kronenberg Celebrating Whitman’s 200th Birth Anniversary

North Shore Reverie

I picture Walt and Neil,

The wizened long-bearded poet

under the wide-brimmed hat,

the astronomer adorned

in a vest of suns and stars,

walking the shore at dusk,

relishing the percussion of

shards and pebbles underfoot,

consonants of the sea’s unfolding song

embedded between ribbons

Of seaweed snapping on the surf’s tongue.

Glaciers, says the astronomer, his voice

a reverent music summoning cliffs

frothed from ice, climbing

and receding in the briny air.

His old companion whispers Algonquins,

sinking footprints in the glittering sand,

their tents and fires shimmering on the landscape.  

“The atoms in your body

are traceable to the stars”

says the astronomer.

“For every atom belonging to me

as good belongs to you.”

says the poet.

With the swell and sway of

the Sound against the tusks

of cliffs, our Island reaches

its long grasp through the

effervescence of Time.

Mindy Kronenberg is an award-winning writer whose poetry, essays, and reviews have appeared in hundreds of publications in print and online in the United States and abroad. She teaches writing, literature, and arts courses at SUNY Empire State College, publishes Book/Mark Quarterly Review, reviews books for Mom Egg, and serves on the board for Inspiration Plus, an arts initiative celebrating creativity through art and science. Since 2016 she has served as Editor for Oberon poetry magazine.