In celebration of National Poetry Month, I am inviting several poet friends to join me in my daily endeavor of paying poetic attention to the world. This week I am sharing the practice with my dear friend Maya Stein, poet of The Creativity Caravan. Maya is one of the most generous writers/teachers/humans I know. Follow her on Instagram at @mayastein, and check out her #100day project for daily doses of wit and inspiration.

sometimes the angel
you cried for in the night
shows up the next day
shimmering on the sidewalk
of an ordinary afternoon.
and instead of wings
there are wheels,
instead of singing
there are sirens,
calling their melodies
from several blocks over.
maybe angel is another word
for any sudden breeze
that leaves you feeling
if not unburdened,
then something like wider,
the way the cry of a gull
lifts part of you up,
carries you, blinking,
out towards the shore.

photo and poem by katherine ferrier ©2017

Art is a battle
like any other.
We keep flattening ourselves
to the foxhole of forgetting
we were once so daring
before a blank page,
a stiff white canvas,
our own wild certainty.
But there is another kind of gun
that glues things back together.
There are weapons to be wielded
in the name of healing and peace.

photo and poem by Maya Stein ©2017