Northern New England Review Volume 42 | 2022
Northern New England Review is published as a creative voice for the Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine region. NNER publishes writers and artists who live in, are from, or have connections to Vermont, New Hampshire, or Maine. If you live here, were once from here, lost or found your heart here, or are currently searching for it among the green hills, sparkling ponds, and rocky coasts, NNER has the poems, short fiction, and creative nonfiction you want to read. Northern New England Review is edited and designed by students and faculty at Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, New Hampshire. Questions can be sent to Margot Douaihy, editor, at douaihym@franklinpierce.edu.
Northern New England Review is published as a creative voice for the Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine region. NNER publishes writers and artists who live in, are from, or have connections to Vermont, New Hampshire, or Maine. If you live here, were once from here, lost or found your heart here, or are currently searching for it among the green hills, sparkling ponds, and rocky coasts, NNER has the poems, short fiction, and creative nonfiction you want to read.
Northern New England Review is edited and designed by students and faculty at Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, New Hampshire. Questions can be sent to Margot Douaihy, editor, at douaihym@franklinpierce.edu.
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Katherine Leonard
THE GARDEN OF THE ORDINARY GOD
The red-backed salamander goes underground, says the article.
Gentle skin open to breathe and sift the odors of musky leaves
of fiddlehead ferns in full array. Now senses the change—
Surface of soil under its featherweight
feet crunch on light rime ice—the signal to go deep.
Impulse ratchets higher—dig while earth is motherly-warm
and receptive. The salamander knows the Ice Queen’s breath—
in its viscera, its integument; a body knowing—
tongue and toes intertwined with the urgency
that drives it to burrow past thin layers of decaying wood and moss.
Seeking paths made by rotted roots to travel ten stories
of body length, past where the queen’s frozen fingers
can reach. The salamander follows the cracked rock passages
into the haven of moist dark where it curls onto itself
in company of earthworms coiled
within their protective coating.
A season of dark spent waiting for the taste of moisture
honeyed with trillium’s first growth.
NORTHERN NEW ENGLAND REVIEW | 61
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