I once stopped at a spot
in the woods where two
paths converge,
and I sat
on a cut log,
looking for grace.
In that moment,
not bright or loud,
but soft,
almost unheard,
I felt it–
or at least a mild
touch of warm sun,
which is, after
all, perhaps
the same thing.
Vivian Wagner lives in New Concord, Ohio, where she’s an associate professor of English at
Muskingum University. Her work has appeared in Slice Magazine, Muse/A Journal, Forage Poetry Journal, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Gone Lawn, The Atlantic, Narratively, The Ilanot Review, Silk Road Review, Zone 3, Bending Genres, and other publications. She’s the author of a memoir, Fiddle: One Woman, Four Strings, and 8,000 Miles of Music (Citadel-Kensington); a full-length poetry collection, Raising (Clare Songbirds Publishing House); and four poetry chapbooks: The Village (Aldrich Press-Kelsay Books), Making (Origami Poems Project), Curiosities (Unsolicited Press), and Spells of the Apocalypse (Thirty West Publishing House) which came out this past summer.
