Emerging poet Haley Neddermann awakens us all from cold slumber into the sacred glory of the natural world with her poem “blue”. Haley’s appearance in The Dewdrop is her publishing debut. Her poem thaws from darkness and night to things green and luminous, bright, as the godlike narrator of the poem stirs, emerges, and carries blue sky to the corners of the earth. Haley’s background as an outdoor educator is woven into the realism and tangibility of each line of “blue”.
blue
a heavy darkness made of moonskin
keeps me buried in the empty earth
trembling & fed whispered hymns
cedar smoke & yarrow tongues
unearth my sleeping shadow
& teach me how to listen close
when earth turns to one side
light spills over the horizon
gold etching fragments of blue
i take my thaw-hungry teeth
sharp from tunneling stones
& cut quick at the loosened sky
ribbons of raw blue rise
cornmeal ocean melancholy
cerato indigo lapis lazuli
i carry this cloak to each
piece of the wide world
the sky doesn’t touch:
a fern’s gaping mouth
bones & tender dreams
sunken globes & foam
a gusting desert wind
turns my cloak into
a mirage for thirst
i bring scraps of blue
up to my lips & drink
i swallow & they fly
inside my throat
an endless sky
unfolding
Haley Neddermann
Haley Neddermann is a writer and outdoor educator based in Connecticut who is constantly being inspired by the natural world, everyday magic, and what it means to be human. She’s on Instagram @lemniscatory_story.
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How lovely; this beautiful imagery reminding us that every living thing is connected to every other living thing.
Keep writing, Haley. Nature lives in your poem. I’m a lover of rhyme, but the life in your writing is paramount. Thank you.