New England Farmhouse
Down from Bob Ovitt’s place, two sisters linger
at their clothesline to watch as the farmer’s two hundred
eighty-pound body is hoisted into a flatbed and then
driven in a scrawl of dust around the bend.
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The Tenderness House – New Edition
Henning has a very elegiac quality to her writing: death, crows, grief and longing. That probably could be said of most poetry, but in this case, there’s also a very subtle sense of self-ironizing awareness. For example, in “Jump-Off Joe Creek,” which examines the story behind the oddly named Oregon stream, Henning takes an inward turn: “but finally, / like Joe on the bridge, you must select / one life and hold it like flint underneath your tongue, / something made in the shape of an arrow.”
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Cathedral of the Hand Review 2020
Local author Dianna Henning’s book “Cathedral of the Hand,” has received an extremely positive review by Bob Stanley. See article in the Lassen Times: https://www.lassennews.com/local-authors-book-receives-stunning–review/
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The Potato Eaters
The tea pourer’s left hand snores on her lap.
One finger strangely points to the floor
as though downward
were the only refuge for the roughly defined. -
Animal Mission
In the beginning there was promise.
We lived together in harmony, -
From the Northeast Kingdom
When the black bearskin hung from the tree
like a rug drying on the clothesline,the hunter recounted how he started an incision,
cut upward to the head,stopped at the mouth’s corners.
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Rhubarb Season
A rooster crowed at the first
strike of light, awaking the stone
child who held her own -
Search
Mother once told me my wakefulness took
up an entire floor—that’swhy I house myself in the woods. All
the tree knows of cover is moss. Allthe child in Aleppo knows of cover is run.
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Set Free
When my husband caught the trapped hummingbird
and freed it from the screened-in porch,
his big hands, a woven bird’s nest,
a few fingers opened into an escape hatch, -
Absorption
I wish I could tell you more about the man
bent over the drawing of his daughters
Sofi and Sonia, how like Saint Bartholomew
in Rembrandt’s painting, the man becomes so intent
that his pencil is now another finger, -
The Butcher’s Apprentice
First he showed him how to hold the cleaver,
where to make the best cut,
said to keep his eye on the meat’s grain,
hold the blade steady, -
The Cornrow Fire
The Cornrow Fire
The fire took off as though it were a living thing. Hissing, it danced over the dry grasses and up into the resinous pines. As though it were a strange recital, the blaze tangoed onto the boughs where its dance widened in skirts of flame.