Making Joshua Stand Still — Lois Marie Harrod

an elegy

The sun stood still
and the shadow
of the horse along the lane
and the shadow of the hand
along the ledge.
The birch that was always swaying
stopped its backbone,
and the boy with the gun
stiffened. In the schoolroom
the German hurtling
from the professor’s mouth
held midair,
such an easy word, erde,
and the smoke in the chimney
corked its curve, the wind
its ash, the willow
its weeping. The minnows
froze in the stream
and the cat’s paw closed
on the vole
whose breath stopped
just before the sun.


***


Lois Marie Harrod’s 16th collection Nightmares of the Minor Poet appeared in June 2016. Fragments from the Biography of Nemesis and How Marlene Mae Longs for Truth were published in 2013. Widely published in journals and online, she teaches Creative Writing at TCNJ.