“Solstice” by Laurie Kuntz
Born on the shortest day of the year
a December darkness carried on my back,
but today, June, wears a sparkled cloak,
a time of new beginnings,
when summer winds speak my name
and carry my true self into crevices
where only the wind can go.
Maybe at that moment
I beg time to witness life breaking,
see all lost corralled
in a struggle of swirling air,
every gust ending each day
not with the same stare tasking darkness,
but with a vision of some new thing
like those crows on a wire, each caw
announcing an astonished and renewed light.
Artist Statement
Every poem is a journey and every journey a poem. I hope my journeys strike a responsive chord. My work results from living as an expatriate, raising a husband and son, and loving my 12 cats and 2 dogs. On a daily basis, I place something in bloom in my favorite blue vase. I have eight published poetry books, and I am a four-time Pushcart and two-time Best of the Net nominee. In 2024, I won a Pushcart Prize. My themes come from working with Vietnamese, Khmer, Hmong, and Laotian refugees, and living as an expatriate in Brazil, Japan, the Philippines, and Thailand.
Laurie Kuntz’s books are: That Infinite Roar, Gyroscope Press; Talking Me Off The Roof, Kelsay Books; The Moon Over My Mother’s House, Finishing Line Press; Simple Gestures, Texas Review Press; Women at the Onsen, Blue Light Press; and Somewhere in the Telling, Mellen Press. Simple Gestures won Texas Review’s Chapbook Contest, and Women at the Onsen won Blue Light Press’s Chapbook Contest. She’s been nominated for four Pushcart Prizes and two Best of the Net Prizes. In 2024, she won a Pushcart Prize. Her 7th book, a chapbook, Balance, is published by MoonStone Arts. Her 8th book, Shelter In Place, will be published by Shanti Arts in 2026. Her work has been widely rejected and at times widely published in Gyroscope Review, Roanoke Review, Third Wednesday, One Art, Sheila Na Gig, SWWIM, and other journals and anthologies. Happily retired, she lives in an endless summer state of mind.