Poem Renaissance – Mary Padgen Michna

Gyroscope Review is celebrating National Poetry Month with a Poem Renaissance, a review of previously published poems looking for new life and new views. Every day through May 20^th, a new poem to fall in love with all over again.

Joy
by Mary Padgen Michna

The field lay barren,
erased to an empty page
under a pale blue morning sky
and warming sun.

And I, a gatherer of loose ends:
errant comma, misspelled name, 
widow word on a line alone,
travel to the madness of newsroom.

I see the black dog writing his story,
punctuating the day with delight, 
running, leaping, spinning in soil
turned by plough.

He dances in the rubble 
of brown broken stalks, 
scatters gold kernels of corn,
a feast for crows.

I pull my car off the road
for a moment and a lifetime,
I fill myself 
with the joy of that black dog.


                    —Published in Passager 2022


Mary Padgen Michna’s work has been printed in Passager, Gyroscope Review, Calyx, Ekphrastic Review, Tiny Seeds Anthology. Humana Obscura has accepted a poem for its upcoming anthology.

Don’t forget to read the Spring 2025 Issue, available now, online and in print

Previous Renaissance Poets

April Poets