Anatomy of a Feather Sandra Noel This morning a raven feather landed at my feet spiraling down from the fir tree a gift or a warning it was hard to tell the way the day went. It is still stuck in my hair where I placed it after touching the soft pennaceous flight feather and stiff quill I thought of writing something about loss the only thing that comes to mind when blackness falls into your path but nothing came. I need to think gift but keep coming up empty-hearted. All I want is a place to disappear for a while follow a trail of black feathers into the green down to the pond maybe the osprey will come or the mallard and her chicks some light diversion or struggle and if a warning comes let it be there so I can take heed and understand.
Sandra Noel works as a free-lance illustrator and graphic designer developing environmental education posters, brochures, and interpretive signs. She also contributes her artistic and design skills as a volunteer for Alliance for Tompotika, a non-profit conservation organization working in Sulawesi, Indonesia. Her poems have appeared in Buddhist Poetry Review, Elohi Gadugi, and Chrysanthemum 2020 Literary Anthology, among other journals. Chapbooks include The Gypsy in my Kitchen and Into the Green (Finishing Line Press), The River (Kelsay Press), Unraveling the Endless Knot (Middle Creek Publishing & Audio), and a full-length poetry book, Love, Island published by Goldfish Press.