La Niña Patterns

La Niña Patterns

Joseph Phelan

Hope accumulates
in flakes of consolation
each unique entirely.

Illuminated in seams
of winter light.

Delivered into drifts
by drafts of upsloping winds.

Sometimes blinding, stinging.

Or, more often, landing lightly and otherwise unseen, unheralded.

Lauded only in the aggregate,
Remarked upon with a neighborly nonchalance.

Which is a guarded optimism and a midwestern benediction,
“Almost a foot now, isn’t it?”.

---

Joseph Phelan
Poet

Joe writes from the western suburbs of greater Chicagoland, where he lives with his wife, son and an incongruous, but reasonably loyal, pair of dogs. Heartened by the career of Wallace Stevens, he spends his days on video calls and writes during the commute from bedroom to kitchen.

Photography by Robbin Grimm