Kelley White

Where Joel S. Coffin Died

–Denver Public Library Special Collections

Rocker, Richard A., 1911-1994

1945

Just a flat wasted field, a few patches of snow, left behind

by the long winter; there might even be a little life,

a bird, perhaps a crow, or field mice, ants, coming out

into near spring sun. The gear, a small back pack, a mess kit,

are surely not his, but someone else’s, perhaps Richard Rocker’s,

or perhaps they belong to another travelling companion. It was

important to find the place, though it differed little from any other,

just a place where the soil received a young man’s life, kissed

with a little of the spirit of his beauty of face, of body, of courage,

of light.

Pediatrician Kelley White has worked in Philadelphia and New Hampshire. Her poems have appeared in Exquisite Corpse, Rattle, and JAMA. Her most recent chapbook is A Field Guide to Northern Tattoos (Main Street Rag Press.) Recipient of 2008 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant, she is Poet in Residence at Drexel’s Medical School. Her newest collection, NO. HOPE STREET, was recently published by Kelsay Books.

Kelley White

Where Joel S. Coffin Died

–Denver Public Library Special Collections

Rocker, Richard A., 1911-1994

1945

Just a flat wasted field, a few patches of snow, left behind

by the long winter; there might even be a little life,

a bird, perhaps a crow, or field mice, ants, coming out

into near spring sun. The gear, a small back pack, a mess kit,

are surely not his, but someone else’s, perhaps Richard Rocker’s,

or perhaps they belong to another travelling companion. It was

important to find the place, though it differed little from any other,

just a place where the soil received a young man’s life, kissed

with a little of the spirit of his beauty of face, of body, of courage,

of light.

Pediatrician Kelley White has worked in Philadelphia and New Hampshire. Her poems have appeared in Exquisite Corpse, Rattle, and JAMA. Her most recent chapbook is A Field Guide to Northern Tattoos (Main Street Rag Press.) Recipient of 2008 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant, she is Poet in Residence at Drexel’s Medical School. Her newest collection, NO. HOPE STREET, was recently published by Kelsay Books.

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