Humanist Voices in Verse:

This week’s poem is by new contributor Laura Maria Bonazzoli. 

Laura Maria Bonazzoli is a freelance writer and editor in the health and life sciences. She has a BA from Regis College in Weston, Massachusetts and an MFA from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Her poetry has been published in several small journals, including Calapooya Collage, Epiphany, Orphic Lute, Red Dancefloor, and Reed Magazine. In her writing, she attempts to follow Rilke’s advice in his Letters to a Young Poet to “learn to love the questions.”

If you’d like to contribute original poetry to Humanist Voices in Verse, write to hnn@americanhumanist.org with “Poetry” in the subject line. Please send no more than three poems for consideration per week.

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Light

that frees the ragged breath

from each dying wave,

that stripes the dull planes

of each pyramid of rock,

disentangles finger of fir

from outstretched sleeve of green, light

that splinters, shatters shadows,

blushes the face of the wild wood rose,

shakes the sea from the white web of sky,

that makes us,

wakes us into being, shines

void of transcendence,

or even a purpose,

indifferent to the length of days

until the sun burns out.

 

—Laura Maria Bonazzoli