Live Encounters Poetry & Writing June 2025
Childhood, poems by Dianna MacKinnon Henning.
Childhood
When prayer was silk coating my throat
When the sky was a circus tent, clouds on its canvas top,
lions and elephants and a flame-eating man
When the cyclist zipped along the tightrope,
slid and regained composure
When a strain of St. Cecilia’s Mass by Gounod
convinced me I should become a nun
When sister and I awakened, walked by moonlight
to the outhouse while the loons ladled songs lakeside
When her hand was a branch that kept me from drowning
as we spilled from the leaky boat
When I woke up screaming from a nightmare,
sister blowing help me bubbles
When the octopus strands of her long hair
went dipping into the deep
When waves returned me to shore, I awakened
gasping for air, my sister nowhere in sight
Who opens the day to a tree
is without remorse
that erratically flits about knows
maps have nothing to do with catching insects, knows that harmony is more than singing
for one’s supperOh, to be a bird in a tree,
and lap the gold of sunshineand know without a doubt that wingspan
is only evidence of feathers
and not the feathers
themselves
© Dianna MacKinnon Henning
Dianna taught through California Poets in the Schools, received several California Arts Council grants and taught poetry workshops through the William James Association’s Prison Arts Program, including Folsom Prison, and runs The Thompson Peak Writers’ Workshop. Publications, in part: The Power of the Feminine, Vol. II; One Art Poetry, 2024; Mocking Heart Review, 2024; Poet News, Sacramento; Worth More Standing, Poets and Activists Pay Homage to Trees; Voices; Artemis Journal, 2021 & 2022 & 2023; The Adirondack Review; Memoir Magazine; The Tule Review; The Lake, UK; California Quarterly; The Plague Papers, Blue Heron Review, and New American Writing. Nomination by The Adirondack Review for a Pushcart Prize, her seventh nomination. MFA in Writing ’89, Vermont College. She recently read with poet Lara Gularte, Poet Laureate Emeritus of El Dorado County. Recently nominated by Blue Heron Review for Best of the Net Anthology for her poem “In the Collage of my Mind/I’m a Simple Design.” She has a new book “Rucksacks for the Leaf Cat” accepted by Finishing Line Press. Nominated by Blue Heron Review Nov. 2024 for a Pushcart Prize.