Burnt Paper 

I walk the track 

along the creek 

where a silent cloud 

of dragonflies 

parts for me 

and I am aware 

of wisps of cloud 

aflame in your world: 

the fragrance of burnt paper  

blows up from your fire 

and I am with you. 

Stained Sky

Stained Sky

The story of our affection

with its glowing facets

stays with me

like the tenderness

of new buds

swept on an impulse

by the evening air.

I did not send

the letters

nor do I mourn

my privation

from your world

but the stained sky

still speaks

of too many twilights

without you.

Let Me Return

 Next time let me return 

as water

that slowly seeps its way 

from marshes and groundwater

into streams beset by dead limbs

but home to freshwater fish

and on whose banks may sit

a girl watching for bass or blue gills

holding a homemade pole.

Let me flow

into the north branch

of the Platt River

that holds rocks but sustains

wide banks and grass-tufted islands

around which I flow

under the shade of ancient trees

providing homes for Wood Ducks

where my shallows of cloudy clay

may be a sacred place

for lost toys or sibling’s ashes.

Let me move downhill

to join other creeks and streams

that together watershed

into Lake Michigan.

Let my shores offer sunlit summer dunes

small enough to shelter

those returning from a cold swim

and large enough to climb

at a 33-degree angle above me.

Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore, Empire, MI

 Let my waves wash small shells

driftwood, and bird feathers ashore

to make necklaces or dream catchers

and let them uncover Petoskey

agate and Greenstone and if calm enough

let the flat stones skip along my surface.

Let my banks and open fields

along  Betsie River

and nearby creeks be laden

with milkweed, marigolds

coneflowers, and buckwheat

charming honeybees and monarchs

and let me end in a marsh like that

of my childhood -- be ever surrounded

by cattails that danced for my sister and me

in rhythm with the breeze.

Let me be water that holds them

long after they have browned

long after geese have flown.

Kruch Family Farm, West Branch, MI

It Held the Moon

the moon almost full

above the pond

glittered

to capacity

and she wondered

how the pond must feel

when it held the moon like that

when it encircled and swelled

with the image of gold

First published in Meat for Tea September 7, 2024 issue

Meadow

We walked toward the river into late September light, seeking space between the recent diagnosis and us; a few yards past the bridge, a meadow of pink hairgrass glowed and meshed with white yarrow and blue thistle, woven together like finely-wrought fans, and with the grace of almost-autumn peaks of goldenrod flickered and leaned into the wooden fence, inviting goldfinches to harvest their tiny seeds. We stood briefly enchanted, bonded to that perfect place, backlit by an overlay of ruby red on navy blue, our breath slowing.

This Place We Call Home

As published on Credo Espoir March 19, 2020

written by Mary Anna Kruch

Home is a safe place for many of us. A place we know we can find rest, shelter from the real and digital worlds, and in the best cases, peace. In 1951 my mother and dad brought me home from the hospital to a large, two-story house on a maple tree-lined street in Detroit. There, my brother, sister, and I safely lived, played on the porches, and stayed out til the streetlights came on. About five years later we moved to the suburbs, played outdoors minus the porches, and were safe on a street with seedling oak trees. The house in the suburbs remains unchanged today except for the size of the trees and the absence of children playing. The house in Detroit is no longer there, where a safe place had been. I wrote about this after a recent visit, in the poem, “Porches on Springfield Street,” published in the 2019 Wayne Literary Review:

“…The street seemed quiet, barren, but for one old man

smoking on the steps of his old porch, who raised his hand to me.

I pointed to an empty, weed-covered space

next to another hole – just two huge holes

where porches had been playgrounds.

I asked about the maple trees.

All gone, he told me. Long gone.”

Although the Detroit house no longer exists, the photos and early memories provide inspiration for poetry as well as an appreciation of my present home, in which I have lived for several years. I am not one for change. So I was fortunate to meet my husband, a Vietnam veteran, when I was an undergrad at Michigan State University.  The many dark, PTSD days evened out with visits to

the family farm in northern Michigan, where he was raised. The marriage came with a wonderful set of second parents who lived into their mid-90s there. One of my favorite places is the reflective pond, graced by willows. I always manage to find time to take a solitary walk, opening myself to the farm’s natural beauty. An old farm road runs from the farm house on the hill down to the pond. In “Farm Meditations: Spring,” my poem in issue 4 of Credo Espoir, I describe the scene in spring:

“Late May lilacs halo

the old log kitchen,

grow sky-high near the well house,

temper winter’s failings.

A dirt road runs downhill

alongside grass, greened from spring rain,

to the willow-bordered pond.

Past an abandoned chicken coop,

last year’s poplar seedlings

push up and away into adolescence;

a rusted harrow rests

where Guernseys once grazed…”

My husband’s parents are gone, but with my husband being the oldest of eight, we have a lot of family. One brother and his wife now live on the farm. Although some of us own parcels of the farmland, the part with the farm house, barns, and pond are not ours, so we don’t have a say in decisions that are made, particularly changes. Bob’s brother and his wife do the best they can to keep the place up, but it is almost an impossible job. Instead of working on a barn roof, my sister-in-law decided that the first thing that needed to be done was to take down four of the six willow trees. This was a change that many family members did not see coming. I write about this is my poem, “Farm Meditations: The Willows:”

“…Mom and Dad are long buried;

all but two willows

farthest from the banks

cut down. These days

the pond lies still, half-filled

with algae blooms and mud

minus the Tarzan rope

minus the merriment…”

The combination of changes to the natural beauty of the place and not having Grandma and Grandpa there has been an impediment to family time spent there. Also from “Farm Meditations: The Willows:”

“…when everyone still spoke

when there was no holding back

when we leaned into one another

around the fire pit

told jokes, poked fun

watched the kids Tarzan off the rope

of a sturdy branch –

a come-together place

held by the willows’ long, tender branches…

These days

the pond lies still, half-filled

with algae blooms and mud

minus the Tarzan rope

minus the merriment…”

Still, our farm, our home, is legally not all ours. New owners have the right to make changes. I think, in their own way, they try to carry on some of the our family traditions. Also from “Farm Meditations: Spring:”

“…Although another gardener

coaxes plants to flower

in Mom’s quarter-acre garden,

and Dad’s John Deere slumbers

in a corner of the front barn --

the family farm still breathes

most richly in the spring.”

My immediate family and I still stop by the farm, but most often, we continue to feather our own nests, allow the front yard sycamore to grow, and make our own homes castles, if not farms.

Read more of Mary Anna Kruch's work in Issue 4 of Credo Espoir.

Photos 1 and 2 of the house on Springfield St. and of author’s brother John pulling neighborhood children in the Radio Flyer are by the author’s father, Gidio Scenga (1953); photos 3 and 4 are of the N. Michigan farm (2013), and photo 5 is of the Sycamore tree in front of the present home (2019) by Mary Anna Kruch.