Marilyn Krysl

Marilyn Krysl (1942- ) her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Nation, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, While serving as Artist in Residence at Dr. Jean Watson’s Center for Human Caring at the University of Colorado, she wrote Midwife, a collection of poems describing the lives and work of caregivers, and Soulskin, which showcases alternative healers. She is also a short story writer.

She Speaks a Various Language

The floor is cold

the ground frozen

This is the bottom

All the world's seeds have wound down

And just when the stem of my spine

seems to have dried up

and become a stalk 

on which my head merely nods

Just when I think nothing is left alive

the bare branches of the trees

rise up, beckoning

And it isn't simply

that I want to go out to them

They also want me to come

Come, they say in their motion

in their scraping of branch against branch

like a woman rubbing her hands together

Come with us    where we are going

Walk with us    up into the wind.

— Marilyn Krysl