by Joan Jansen
The door to my heart you could have opened,
but did not. Why?
Were you concerned about prints
left on the knob by others?
I’ve told you they only knocked.
I never let them in.
Not really in, not deep inside,
where there’s just room for two.
It is a small space and will only fit
the lives of me and you.
Is this another invitation
that through renunciation
you’re going to allow pass by?
Well, I’ll hope on—it’s all I have left—
and leap at every knock.
Joan Jansen received her M.A.H. from Manhattanville College specializing in history and her B.A. in Philosophy (magna cum laude) from Fairfield University. She has had a career in advertising and public relations, and is predominantly a writer of poetry, historical non-fiction and middle-grade novels. Her connection to New Hampshire was a “fall-in-love” moment when she stayed at the Woodbound Inn and went cross-country skiing up to Cathedral of the Pines in the ’60s.
Jeffrey C. Dickler, a native of Brooklyn, New York, was transplanted to the Midwest after his formative years. His love of the outdoors grew from summers at his grandfather’s Camp Iroquois on Frost Pond in Jaffrey, New Hampshire. By age four he already had hiked to the peak of Mount Monadnock. Later family trips to the American Southwest and National Parks cemented his love of exploring nature with a pack on his back and camera in hand. In 2017 he retired to the Monadnock region. He lives with his wife, Deni, and their four-legged companion, Willy Waggins, in Rindge, New Hampshire.
Smoky Quartz 