Norma Voorhees Sheard moved to coastal Maine from rural New Jersey in 1999. She received a NJ State Council on the Arts Poetry Fellowship in 1989, and is published in many journals and anthologies including NY Quarterly, Nimrod, Blue Unicorn, Dragonfly, US 1 Worksheets, The Paterson Literary Review, and others. She has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. In 2004 she received a residency at The Millay Colony, Austerlitz, NY. Sheard's work is characterized by quiet and accurate observations of nature (human and otherwise) from a strongly feminine point of view through which powerful feelings and strong emotions are sublimated.
ARS POETICA, #1
Never underestimate the importance
of a clothesline when it begins a poem.
Everything becomes suspect --
the crow in search of gold,
the stream which runs fickle
through the meadow and wood to the sea,
your white shirt on the line
attached to the bright red barn.
Previously published: Bangor Metro; Puckerbrush
WOMEN GATHERED BY THE BOATHOUSE
In our diversities, we have the stars
in common, and the moon
though it doesn't shine for us tonight.
The wooden dock loves us.
Someone sees a shooting star.
The halyards are merry.
We pass the wine glass
between us and sing songs.
The waters of Cayuga join in.
It doesn't matter that some of us
don't know the words.
Previously published: South Florida Review
TIMID MOON
Miles of evening stretch between us
You row toward me on wide water
Under a timid moon
Back and forth
Fir and spruce send messages --
Hurry Hurry
High on the crest
Where the river begins
My house waits
All night
In honeysuckle dark
I keep the hearth fire
Do not lose
Your way
Previously published: The Black Fly Review
STILL LIFE
Again, the sea creeps across the flats,
salting the air. There is stillness
as before rain; no shadow moves.
How tender the white heron seemed,
as it settled into the marsh grasses.
This is the hour the tide swells to fullness,
unaware the moment it must turn.
I see your arm, turned to bone, slender
on the counterpane.
Previously published: Animus
OLD SALT WATER FARM
for Nancy Hodermarsky
Daylilies, delphinium and lavender
crowd against humps of granite.
The wind is swift today,
stamping a path from bay and meadow
through Nancy's gardens.
Its feisty salt breath
makes the old asparagus fronds tremble.
Stalks slip from their holding rings,
their green tops, feather dusters
with nothing to do.
Previously published: The Eggemoggin Reach Review
ZEN GARDEN
for Gayle and Dan Hadley
Happiness is not made, but given
Robert Farnsworth, "Uses of the Cedar," Honest Water
Red-turned leaves of azalea.
Granite. Ivory and red pebbles.
Beachwood, stripped clean.
On the pond the first skin of ice.
Reluctant to relinquish its voice
one cricket, its glissando
repeated. Repeated.
Stone Buddha idles
at the wood line.
A trickle of sunlight
illuminates the way.
Previously published: The Eggemoggin Reach Review