Still: The Journal

Connie Jordan Green

The Color of Comfort

here at the edge / of the abyss
the tea is the amber color / of comfort

—Linda Pastan

and the wind rises
like the breath
of a hundred souls
who have drifted
from the ledge
and settled in the valley
where clover covers
the fields and ivy
climbs the cliff face,
where white-faced
cattle wade waist
deep in summer’s
shades of green,
and the stream 
that carved the valley 
offers a soft murmur
as if it had no power 
to wield. 

~

Connie Jordan Green lives on a farm in East Tennessee where she writes and gardens. She is the author of two award-winning novels for young people, The War at Home and Emmy, published originally by Margaret McElderry imprint of MacMillan and Simon Shuster, respectively, reissued in soft cover by Tellico Books imprint of Iris Press; two poetry chapbooks, Slow Children Playing, 2007, and Regret Comes to Tea, 2011, both published by Finishing Line Press; and a poetry collection, Household Inventory, 2015, winner of the Brick Road Poetry Award. Her poetry has appeared in numerous anthologies and journals, including previous issues of Still: The Journal. Since 1978 she has written a weekly newspaper column for The Loudon County News Herald. She leads writing workshops and teaches writing and literature courses for Oak Ridge Institute of Continued Studies. 

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