May 2022
Bio Note: I do a lot of work for nonprofit organizations: I am the president of the Michigan College English Association; I am active in my synagogue; I am a founding mother of the Rape Crisis Center in Madison, Wisconsin; also, I co-founded the Professional Instructors Organization union at Western Michigan University. My hobbies are hiking, singing, and bird-watching. I have published seven books, including the award-winning children’s fiction picture book about bullying How the Moon Regained Her Shape (Arbordale, 2006; 6th edition 2018), the poetry book Folk Concert: Changing Times (Anaphora Literary Press, 2012), and a book of nature poems entitled Nature’s Olympics (Wipf and Stock, 2021).
Warm Autumn in Michigan
No hard frost hits
until the day after Halloween
and temperatures in the seventies
prevail on Veteran’s Day.
Trees reach full color in November.
Maples, ginkgoes,
sycamores, and oaks
hold their leaves
past Thanksgiving.
Lilies, hydrangea,
roses, candytufts,
hibiscus, and clover
keep blooming,
defy the waning light.
We pick apples,
parsley, and basil
fresh from our garden.
The sun stands still.
Bamboo Shoot
For Sufen Lai
The mean kids
in your Taiwan grade school
jeered that you
were as skinny
as a bamboo shoot
and taller than the teacher.
Thirty years later,
you're still slender
but curved like a taut bow,
and your long, dark hair
cascades to your waist.
Only your friends
know how wide
your heart can stretch.
Tashlich
We Jews empty our pockets
on the afternoon
of Rosh HaShanah,
recite prayers and psalms,
hurl starchy food,
cast our sins
into flowing water.
Fish, ducks, and geese
gobble the millet,
rice cakes, and matza.
Do our mistakes
cause indigestion?
Do our dirty deeds
pollute the stream?
When the creatures
excrete our sins,
does the substance
transform the river?
Do our grains fertilize
the algae and seaweed,
nurture new life?
©2022 Janet Ruth Heller
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