Sentidos

Poems by Janet McMillan Rives

Sentidos de Uxmal

Tocar
Rough edges of stone
graze my outstretched finger.

Probar
Fresh rain falls from gray clouds
onto my tongue.

Oler
The essence of jungle dirt
drifts upward.

Oír
Voices echo across the expanse
of nunnery grass.

Ver
An oriole flames orange
from the Ceiba’s high branches.

From: Beyond Words, November 2023
Photo/art: Kim McNealy Sosin

Blaze

Everyday dull
then suddenly
from within the flat tan
emerge such gems:
the turquoise underside
of a desert lizard,
flaming jasper
on barrel cacti,
yellow palo verde
gone to topaz.
Look!
Our desert’s
ablaze.

From: Washed by a Summer Rain: Poems from the Desert.
Kelsay Publications, 2023.

Triple Moon Shot

We head out for an evening drive
along Sowbelly Road,
twisting, turning, tracing W
and then J as we follow the creek
winding north through pine hills.
Above, a golden escarpment
is lit by the waning sun.

What seems to be a dead gopher
becomes, instead, a snapping turtle,
very much alive, laying eggs
in the burrow she has dug
smack dab in the middle of our track.

Down the road, we stop the car
to see the sun’s remaining rays
cast a purple glow on rugged rocks.
Then facing east, surprise,
we see an ivory disc rise.
Three shutterbugs, enraptured
click, click, click.
The full moon, captured.

From: Into this Sea of Green: Poems from the Prairie.
Finishing Line Publications, 2020.

Janet McMillan Rives was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and grew up in Storrs until moving to Tucson, Arizona midway through high school. She is a graduate of the University of Arizona (B.A.) and Duke University (M.A., Ph. D.) She taught college economics for thirty-five years and retired as Professor Emerita of Economics from the University of Northern Iowa. She resides in Oro Valley, Arizona.

Her love of poetry began during her youth in New England when she discovered the poetry of Robert Frost. She has been reading poetry her entire life and writing poetry since the 1980s. She is active in small poetry writing groups in Tucson. Her poems have appeared in such publications as Lyrical Iowa, Ekphrastic Review, Sandcutters, The Avocet, The Blue Guitar, Creosote, Crosswinds, Fine Lines, The Raw Art Review, and Beyond Words and anthologies such as Voices from the Plains, The Very Edge, and Night Forest. Her first chapbook of poetry, Into This Sea of Green: Poems from the Prairie, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2020. In 2023 Kelsay Books released her collection, Washed by a Summer Rain: Poems from the Desert.