National Poetry Month - Kathleen Matson

Writer, photographer, blogger and poet Kathleen Matson Blurock lives in Los Angeles, California, Livingston, Montana and Pittenweem, Scotland.

Lucky to have my poem chosen for the window of SAX & FRYER, oldest store in Livingston, Montana. Opened 1883, one year after the town was founded.

A Place to Hide

That summer I found places to hide 

around the neighborhood.

The metal tubes stacked

on Grimes’ lot behind our house

was one of my favorites. 

I sat in one on rainy days, 

smelled the air, 

and would not be bothered. 

I hid under the stairway 

and read comic books 

in the neighbor’s hall closet.

I sneaked in the back door, 

turned on the light,

and sat under jackets and coats 

in privacy.

From the backseat floor 

of Mom’s ‘41 Chevy, 

I rolled down the window, 

and watched ants crawl 

over the tops of pink and white peonies 

that lined the driveway. 

I found places to hide 

so I could be alone.

I found places to hide 

from my father’s anger.

I found places to hide 

where I listened 

to what the rain had to tell me,

or the ants,  

or the peonies, 

still my favorite flower. 

National Poetry Month - Marc Beaudin

This piece is excerpted from Notes from the Grizfork: A Year of Watching in Montana's Paradise Valley, Poems & Observations 

by Marc Beaudin 

This piece gives you Montana. 
Thank you Marc Beaudin of 
Elk River Books. 

Elk River Books

I wake this morning to another dusting of snow on the high mountains, but down here in the valley, the day grows warm like a Michigan Indian summer – memories of youth sanctified by age. The magpies scatter as I step from my cabin and a red-shafted flicker clings to the uppermost branch of a dying willow. Later in the day, a raven holds the identical spot. So too, red gives way to black in our rivers and blood.

Click here to read "Notes From the Grizfork" 

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