I happened to be to one who asked Melissa J. Varnavas to join me one day for a North Shore Poets’ Forum meeting, and she’s been off and running with poetry ever since.

She joined the  Forum and the Massachusetts State Poetry Society. She joined the Tin Box Poets and the Ipswich Poetry Group. She is now a student at Solstice MFA at Pine Manor College creative writing program in poetry, graduating in January 2010. And, her poetry has appeared in the literary journals Margie and Oberon.

We first met at the Beverly Citizen newspaper, where I was the City Hall/Cop reporter and she came on staff as the Education reporter. She tackled all the challenges of being new kid on the block, and she ended up as the editor of the paper, which pleased her immensely, since Beverly is her hometown.

Life being what it is, and sometimes not so nice, she left that job. But, not before winning a number of awards from the New England Press Association and the Massachusetts Press Association

Now, when she has time from her very busy work and school schedule, she writes freelance articles that have appeared in the Lawrence Eagle Tribune, Danvers Herald and Boston Now.

She is also the associate director of ACDIS, a professional organization for hospital administrators. And, she’s still winning awards, now with the Specialized Information Publishers Association.

She has agreed to share a few of her terrific poems with us.  Here’s the first one. I’m going to ration these, so you’ll have something to look forward to for the next few days. Then, I’ll put up her Introducing … page so that you can refer back to these terrific poems. Maybe she’ll even add more as the months go by.

(Note: to show stanza breaks I am inserting a line with a few dots, because this program does not like to insert the spaces, for some reason. Also, it flushes left.)

A Blessing: Prayer for My Love

The wind in the trees carries

the cicadas hum, their mating call.

…

He says it’s about love. It’s always

about love with him.

…

He loves me so much it makes him

crazy. He smooths my hair

…

with one, big hand and kisses

my mouth hard. I think of this longing

…

as twilight fields soaked in a purple tinge. His eyes

fill with the dimming light that whispers so soft across the pond.

…

I imagine my passion as a steaming cup

of coffee drunk up in sunshine, memories of chocolate.

…

While his heart, beats in dissonance.

Fear. And loss. And loss. Death.

…

But not now, I say. Not just now.

…

I know this.

I know this.

…

I kiss him back and shudder

as he moves his lips over the blue

…

vein of my left wrist.