Jane Yolen
Choosing Rapture
There is a choice, you know,
rupture or rapture,
a single vowel of change.
Take to the countryside,
or stay in the brangle
of politics and war.
My choice of course.
But not all have the option
laid so openly at their feet.
I live on a farm full
of the mysteries of the world,
not the miseries.
In this small holding,
deer hunch over the long grass,
a green deli,
bobcats with corded muscles
stalk their own tales.
Coyotes in predator peer groups
make their endless rounds,
geese gossip before each take off,
and possum practices death
whenever I come into view.
Just watching them soothes the rupture,
irons over the hard wrinkles
of this modern life.
I ignore the harsh realities,
giving in to rapture,
a moment of true reality,
as sharp as a story,
as metaphoric as a poem.
Jane Yolen is a poet, novelist, children’s book writer, essayist, short story writer, and lyricist. To date, she has published 376 books, 10 of them poetry collections for adult readers. She has won many awards for her work, including two Nebulas, two Golden Kite Awards, a Caldecott Medal, two Christopher Medals, a New England Public Radio Arts & Humanities award, and three World Fantasy awards. Six colleges and universities have granted her honorary doctorates. Yolen writes, “But awards can be dangerous. One set my good coat on fire.”
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