To celebrate National Poetry Month, The Poetry Box is sharing a Poem-of-the-Day, selected from various anthologies and individual poet collections that we have published over the years.
Please enjoy today’s selection: “Dirty Girl” by Kristin Roedell, which appears in The Poeming Pigeon: Doobie or Not Doobie:
Dirty Girl
Fall and winter mornings
were awash with mist.
It took me an hour
to circle the lake;
I sat on every bench,
I memorized the plaques.
A moss-covered tree stretched
branches across the shallows;
the ducks were pearled along
them, waiting for the winter sun
to come up,
bills tucked into feathers.
I saw God
in the simple angles
that followed them
as they swam.
When startled, they lifted
in a flood of wings, returning
like a gentle rain.
September
I sat under a red and gold oak,
leaves spread beneath me
in a rich gown.
December
I walked the high trails,
a hoarfrost on the reeds.
I wrote a poem (this poem)
to not forget the sound
of leaves underfoot.
I have never known
such a graceful falling
of the year.
It might have been
the marijuana,
pungent and strong;
I smoked it that year.
They called it
Dirty Girl—
but I have never been
so clean.
