The Poetry Well is a monthly column that showcases island poetry. This month includes a poem by Susan Lynch.

QUINCUNX

If words were clouds I’d want them

to look like dabs appearing

these zen steady

brushstrokes from the mountain top

this shodo in etheric ink

made by some invisible calligrapher

holding her sleeve from the canvas.

See, she is winged with a fire

in the head, tasseled and fringed

she seems to say

don’t be afraid to come apart.

In the center of the quincunx

lightly touched at four corners

a hummer’s ruby gorget

flashes green and zips through the veil.

Susan Lynch moved to Vashon in 2014. She is a graduate of Reed College, studied abroad at Oxford and holds a master’s in fine arts degree in poetry and creative writing from Goddard College’s West Coast Low Residency program in Port Townsend.

Lynch has taught a poetry elective at the Harbor School, reads with local poets and is a member of the island poetry group Islolati. Her poems have appeared in the Bombay Gin literary journal and the Oxford University Poetry Society journal, the Neo Circle Anthology. She also has three poems in the upcoming Sequestrum literary journal. She has a private shamanic practice and is also an editor and curriculum development writer.