This week's Poet of the People is Duna Miller. I first met Duna over a decade ago at a poetry reading. She can be seen haunting the poetry scene and the Mind Gravy mic when her church choir takes its summer break. Duna is a delightful human being and is a better poet than her humility allows her to project in our literary community. I am honored to call her friend.
-Al Black
Duna Miller began life in Vienna, Austria, as the first of eight daughters. When her father retired from the Army in 1964 their family moved to Columbia and she has resided in the Columbia area ever since. She met James Dickey in Fall 1969 at USC and continued to be his friend and student until he left for the starry place in 1997. Most of her working life was spent in education, and she retired from the USC School of Medicine in 2014.
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To My Sister Bo
(1949-2024)
The sun left the sky
The morning you died.
I will always be sorry,
I will always be grateful -
You were part of my life
All the days of yours.
Inspiration
In the night, in the mind,
The untrained fingers find the keys -
Elusive harmonies,
Unwritten melodies unwind.
In the light, we are blind.
The pinpoint eyes behind us seize
Vague shadows through the leaves.
The unseen vision frees mankind.
Set loose like cats at play,
Imagination’s day begins
Before the dawn sheds light,
Obscuring in that brighter way
The truth the darkness wins.
The webless spider spins by night.
Skyfish
A school of silver minnows turn
In unison against the clouds.
Here and there a jellyfish rises
To the surface and plummets with a blink.
Sometime during the differentiation
Of the fetal eye, bits of matter left over
From other structures lodged in the jelly
Between the lens and retinal wall.
When this debris floats into our field of vision,
And the retinal corpuscles twitch,
The sky becomes a motion picture screen
For an ocean of finite depth.
Dialectic
Angels are guiding my hand.
I stand in a clearer light.
There is no right way to go.
The shadow is always near.
I hear but cannot tell why,
Just follow my inner voice.
Choice is the dream of angels.