Rosalie Boyle / Norma Farber Award, selected by Wendy Drexler
Winning Poet: Jean Kreiling, “Finally Found It”
Finally Found It
(the name of an antique store in Maine)
As she pulled off the road, tired of the rain,
and parked outside the big, gray-shingled store,
she wondered if she’d find it here in Maine.
It seemed unlikely. She watched runoff drain
out rusty downspouts, then walked to the door
and pulled it open, shaking off the rain.
She saw a tarnished brass headboard, a plain
oak butler’s desk, a single weathered oar,
and lobster traps (you find them here in Maine)—
not things that she had sought, but these mundane
objects each told a tale, preserved the lore
of distant days along this road. The rain
began to echo rumblings in her brain:
she liked it here, where history was more
alive than dead. What had she found in Maine?
The raindrops seemed to mutter a refrain
of welcome, an old song she’d heard before;
she felt the timeless pull of home. The rain
insisted that she’d found it—here in Maine.
Jean L. Kreiling
Jean L. Kreiling’s first collection of poems, The Truth in Dissonance (Kelsay Books), was published in 2014. She is a past winner of the Able Muse Write Prize, the Great Lakes Commonwealth of Letters Sonnet Contest, two New England Poetry Club prizes, and the String Poet Prize.