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Norita Dittberner-Jax

Circling

What will winter here
has already moved in.

The lines of poems I wrote
thirty years ago
come back to me now in the same
circumstances that inspired them,

A few trees left
on the spine of the hills,
black-sleeved arms
fingering the dark.

A shadow close by, a sense
that it will abide.

I’m circling back,
taking my years with me,
that great robe of time
circling my shoulders.

Norita Dittberner-Jax is the author of four collections of poetry. The poems enclosed here are from her new manuscript, Crossing The Water, now under consideration at several presses. Norita is one of the poetry editors for Red Bird Chapbooks. She lives with her husband in Lilydale now, on the banks of the mighty Mississippi.
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