With  my friend Janet Harrison.

Jeanne Lohmann descibes herself as a "migratory Midwesterner." She was born in Ohio, moved to Colorado where her four children were born, then to San Francisco, where she graduated from the creative writing program at San Francisco State University, and finally to Olympia, Washington. Her ten published volumes of poetry include BETWEEN SILENCE AND ANSWER (Pendle Hill Publications,1994), GRANITE UNDER WATER (Fithian Press, 1996), FLYING HORSES (Fithian Press, 2001) and most recently, SHAKING THE TREE (Fithian Press, 2010). An eleventh volume, AS IF WORDS, is forthcoming in March 2012. She writes, "Poems begin in giving attention. In sharing enthusiasm, the energy of praise. In not knowing where the poem will go and trying to discern the leadings."

She opens her book, FLYING HORSES, with these sentences: "In the journeys of the heart, be alert for the slightest sign. Along the extraordinary blue corridors of the soul, take nothing for granted."

Jeanne Lohmann's poetry has roots in her Quaker beliefs and sensibilities, and each are testimonies to simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality, and service -- SPICES, in the Friends vocabulary. She draws her gift for rich imagery equally from the spirit and the earth: a good mix for Thanksgiving, and grace.

This poem is INVOCATION, from BETWEEN SILENCE AND ANSWER (Pendle Hill Publications, 1994)

INVOCATION

Let us try what it is to be true to gravity,
to grace, to the given, faithful to our own voices,

to lines making the map of our furrowed tongue.
Turned toward the root of a single word, refusing

solemnity and slogans, let us honor what hides
and does not come easy to speech. The pebbles

we hold in our mouth help us to practice song,
and we sing to the sea. May the things of this world

be preserved to us, their beautiful secret
vocabularies. We are dreaming it over and new,

the language of our tribe, music we hear
we can only acknowledge. May the naming powers

be granted. Our words are feathers that fly
on our breath. Let them go in a holy direction.