Jeanie Tomasko was born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin. She earned her degree in nursing from UW-Madison and works as a home health nurse in the Madison area. She is an active member of the ecumenical Benedictine community at Holy Wisdom Monastery. She has four grown children. Jeanie and her husband, Steve, enjoy the outdoors and venture out whenever they can via foot, ski or a couple of paddles and a seaworthy canoe.
Jeanie is author of Sharp as Want (Little Eagle Press), a poetry-artworks collaboration with Sharon Auberle. Her poems have appeared in journals such as Lilliput Review,
Verse Wisconsin, The Midwest Quarterly, and Wisconsin People and Ideas. Her chapbook, Tricks of Light is forthcoming from Parallel Press (September 2011.) Centennial Press has accepted her manuscript, The Collect of the Day, for publication.
Please enjoy some of her poetry following:
Golden-Crowned Kinglet
After all, there are stillnesses in this world
and small places for birds
to live out their lives. What one is given
is a radius of being. A circle.And you live all your hours there: round
and round the clock goes.
Tall fir to stream, wood edge to wind.
Then death comes
and the white gulls fly in for your bones.-Jeanie Tomasko
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Hundred Flutes
The song of the hermit thrush
is like rain on a street at night,wind in a field of winter wheat,
a hundred Irish flutes.It ripples your bones
works your spinelike lemons, like spools
of silkunraveling,
like loneliness,
like finding a patch
of yellow lady’s slippers—no one around to tell
how your body
is ringing
like a thousand golden bells.
-Jeanie Tomasko*(first published in Verse Wisconsin)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~little lives
late August mornings
bees sleep in on the sunflowers
until their bodies are warmand ready to move
every day it takes
a little longermy husband says come
touch them they have their own
small way of breathingyesterday we watched
a caterpillar on a stem it had
a smooth copper head glinting eyesall around in the stillness yellow
grasshoppers vaulted through the air
you could hear them landon brittle brown leaves
you could almost hear the spiders
spinning spinningthe world itself
forgiving our trespass
-Jeanie Tomasko*(first published in The Midwest Quarterly)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Edge of September
Again this year it comes:
the shift in the wind
that certain slant of sun
the sudden red of sumac.Out at the lake
birdsong is less urgent,
the young can feed themselves.
In a few days
something like light
will tug on wings.I am at home with
the downside of summer.
I take stock of the woodpile.
Night comes earlier. The space
between cricket chirps, longer.
I’ve stopped coloring my hair.My husband fingers the gray
as if learning a tenderness.
-Jeanie Tomasko*(first published in Secondwind)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Plate 279 Wood Thrush
At dusk
the song
like the secret
name of God
shivers
down
the branches,
enters
the bone
in your chest
at the place
riven
by a nameable
sadnessand sets
its seal.
-Jeanie Tomasko*(first published in Lilliput Review)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Plate 11 Ring-Billed Gull
Whatever you heard
on mid-summer’s eve,
don’t tell—just showwhere to point my heart
when to turn my head
and which soft winddear fellow, to follow.
-Jeanie Tomasko*(first published in Lilliput Review)
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If you would like to be considered for Featured Writer, please email your poems to heart@sc.rr.com or mail to:
Connie Martin, Editor ~Nostalgia Press~2003 Broughton St.~Orangeburg, SC 29115
