Words Come After by Rayya Liebich

June 20, 2022
Poem title: Words Come After Poet name: Rayya Liebich Poem: Poems slip through pillows like rainfall at bedtime. Words race down invisible paper page after page of absence. A red moon rises and perches like the owl that does not sleep but came as an omen one year before. Dawn is a botanist treading through the symphony of grass seeking sunlight through a lens then breaking on bent knees for one drop of dew. Day is ocean tug and tide, the revelation of sand dollars, return of land speckled with purple crab carcasses, black algae tangled in knots. Dusk is the place where fireflies blink like night-lights in green meadows, when the net appears, feelings caught in mid-flight so letters can bend like reeds into words, and pages of heartache unfold. End of poem. Credits and Bio: Copyright © Rayya Liebich Previously published in MIN HAYATI by Rayya Liebich (Inanna Publications and Education Inc., 2021). Rayya Liebich (she/her) is a Canadian poet and educator of Lebanese and Polish descent. Winner of the Richard Carver Award for Emerging Writers (2019), The Geneva Literary Award (2015), and The Golden Grassroots Chapbook Award (2015), she holds a degree in English Literature from McGill University and a B. Ed from The University of Victoria. Her poems and prose have appeared in literary journals internationally and her debut full-length poetry collection MIN HAYATI was released by Inanna Publications and Education Inc. in June, 2021. Passionate about writing as a tool for transformation and changing the discourse on grief, she teaches poetry and CNF to youth and adults in beautiful Nelson, BC.