In this week’s poem, Joan Barker writes of coming to terms with an unexpected loss. I love this poem’s rich dream imagery, its clarion and candid sense of longing, and its beautifully tangible description of encountering a lost beloved.

Barker is a teacher and writer who has worked in the Portland Public Schools, in rural Niger with the Peace Corps, on military bases in Afghanistan and with refugees in her own state of Connecticut. In addition to being a poet, Barker found her voice writing op-eds about the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan that appeared in the Orlando Sentinel, the Miami Herald, Stars and Stripes and Mother Jones.

Poets, please note that submissions to Deep Water are open now and through the end of the year. Deep Water is especially eager to share poems by Black writers, writers of color, Indigenous writers, LGBTQ+ writers and other underrepresented voices. You’ll find a link to submit in the credits below.

The Quiet
By Joan Barker

I still have the dreams, years later
pay you secret visits

I am in the shadow
and light fills the space around you

Golden light
hovering over tire tracks in the sand
Golden light
shimmer softly as it lands
at the foot of clay walls
lining the sleepy streets
of the city
at dusk

I need to see you, I need to know
to hear the quiet, I need to know
that it is over, that you are safe
I watch you float past, slow

They say you cannot see eyes in dreams,
but I see yours,
and you are not afraid, and I am glad
that we are strangers again
as you melt into the sea
of silhouettes, silent shadows
and faceless figures
working your way closer, and closer
toward the edge of town
deeper, and deeper
into the blinding glare of the sunset’s glow

Did you make it?
Tell me, Love,
are you in the quiet yet?

Megan Grumbling is a poet and writer who lives in Portland. Deep Water: Maine Poems is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. “The Quiet,” copyright 2024 by Joan Barker, appears by permission of the author. Submissions to Deep Water are open now and through the end of the year. For more information, go to mainewriters.org/deep-water.