Christa Polkinhorn

"Path of Fire is passionate and moving. It touches the very heart of the reader. This is poetry at its best." Leah Maines, Poet and Bestselling Author

"Christa Polkinhorn's poetry is clear-eyed and elegiac, with a cosmopolitan flavor. Path of Fire is full of unsentimental but emotionally charged poems about loneliness and family and 'searching the earth for a home.'" Gwynne Garfinkle, Poet

Winter in Castaneda                                        

Climbing the stairs

from the cellar to the room

with the tile floor,

eight months later,

after the pain has softened,

after the ashes have been scattered

on the rock, after driving past the

snowy fields of Saint Gotthard,

we feel your presence

fill the spaces between our bodies.

Not yet understanding the full meaning

of this merging, of your hands

entwined in the leaves of plants,

your scent lingering in the

cedar closet, your smile

in the candle flame,

your voice trailing the crackling

of logs in the fireplace,

a sound so delicate,

we dare not move

as not to disturb it.

With each breath we take

the silent words into our hearts

and choose to believe in the

here and now

of all that was, before you left us