Poem: An Avalanche

She can’t close her eyes
but to see him floating
hair caught with ice,
anchored to this heart break like a star.

Her hands clamp shut silent pleas
of ‘if only’s’.

To heave up the unforgivable-

that one day
her heart,
would still
all songs of charity.

Someone else, dear God,
someone else.

She crouches down
bent low by disbelief.

Searches for him in photos
and stick figured cards
carefully signed.

She sleeps with his sweater
wrapped round her indigo grief.

Oh, little boy,
let her just see you,
hold you,
warm you,

in this rock-songed culvert
where her cries
come back
like the coal black crows
stilled
on this soft bed of snow.

Meet Jude at Coming Events

  • Book launch for The Flaw, at the Canadian Music Centre BC on November 6 at 3:30-5pm.
  • PREVIOUS EVENTS

  • Jude read from Naxos Greece on Saturday September 17 @ 1:00 pm-2:00 pm. PDT time. The event included Jude Neale, reading from The River Answers (Ekstasis Editions) | Shani Mootoo, Cane Fire (Book*Hug Press) | Alan Hill, In the Blood (Caitlin Press), all speaking from different places on Earth.
    For information: bit.ly/3d3h3AZ
  • The Bowen Island launch for Inside the Pearl was on October 1, 2021, 7:30pm, at the Hearth Gallery.
  • Guernica launched on Zoom Sep 12, 2021 - 12:30 Pacific
  • Launch at Joy Kogawa House, Vancouver on September 19, 2021 at 4pm. Jude read several poems from the book with photographs.
  • Jude will facilitated a workshop on Sunday, August 8: "Impromptu, Poetry Writing from 1-2pm on Bowen Island. Register
  • In the afternoon, Jude read from A Blooming, Impromptu, The River Answers and The Flaw, from between 2:30 and 5pm on Bowen Island. She was one of several Bowen writers performing at that time. More Info

Jude Reads Poetry