The Mother Goddess Made Visible
an earthen bowl
open to hold the sweet
toil of bees
a moldering-into-the-duff
deer skull that harbors
barbed seed
held up and out
your hands cupped to create
a grateful rain-keep
Paulann Petersen, Oregon Poet Laureate Emerita, has eight full-length books of poetry,
most recently My Kindred from Salmon Poetry of Ireland. A former Stegner Fellow at
Stanford University, she’s the recipient of the Holbrook Award from Literary Arts.
Willamette Writers honored her with a Distinguished Northwest Writer Award.