Delmarva – A Poem by Katy Santiff

Submitted by Katy Santiff

For the souls that we’ve folded into these
broad, fat lands, laid out like my grandma’s quilt;
for the living still wandering here below
these clouds that pillow up over us like
fluffing–billowing mat-stuff lining with
a wonder, a cotton question: tell us
what’s patterned above, and who would know to
answer us, the some-numbered billions left
traipsing down here, so strangely encumbered,
accompanied, alone? We ask through the
sky’s thin walls–hear the way some dark brilliance
calls–but the only answer back to us
is the blowing of our coastal plains, the
pressure of our bay-hills’ rolls, the feeling
of a thumb pressed to our minds as if God
made print-marks on the Sun: we lived here, once.

About the Poet

Katy Santiff has written poetry in various forms all her life. A fan of meter and rhyme, she loves lines that hypnotize the reader with their sound. She believes in densely-packed poems, preferring them to be mouthfuls when read aloud.  A lifelong Marylander, she loves water-side living.  She currently lives in Edgewater, Maryland with her wife.

Painting: Approaching Night – Henry William Banks Davis