I am dreaming of Gabriela Mistral again and her children,
those orphaned poems that became people who loved her
and left her happy. Emergency was what saved her.

On any day, the tree spreads its wings to cover the sky,
and a clutter of crows wakes to her song of loneliness.
But the vast canopy becomes a kind of family.

In the morning, she is gone, but the laughing and light
screams of children linger over the ocean here. A word
can be a grain of sand, or a small hand.

George Moore's collections include Saint Agnes Outside the Walls (FutureCycle 2016) and Children's Drawings of the Universe (Salmon Poetry 2015). Nominated for six Pushcart Prizes, and a finalist for both the National Poetry Series and the Brittingham Poetry Award, his work has appeared in The Atlantic, Colorado Review, Arc, Antigonish Review, Orbis, and Valparaiso. After a career at the University of Colorado, Boulder, he lives on the south shore of Nova Scotia.