Stuart Kestenbaum

Stuart Kestenbaum (1953 -  ) is the author of five collections of poems, most recently How to Start Over (Deerbrook Editions, 2019). Kestenbaum is the host of the Maine Public Radio program Poems from Here. He was appointed Maine’s poet laureate in 2016.

Joy

The asters shake from stem to flower

waiting for the monarchs to alight.

Every butterfly knows that the end

is different from the beginning

and that it is always a part

of a longer story, in which we are always

transformed. When it's time to fly,

you know how, just the way you knew

how to breathe, just the way the air

knew to find its way into your lungs,

the way the geese know when to depart,

the way their wings know how to

speak to the wind, a partnership of feather

and glide, lifting into the blue dream.

— Stuart Kestenbaum