Robin Sampson

Robin E. Sampson: poet, writer, blogger, mother of three, gardener, Master Wildlife Conservationist, inquirer into the gritty, beautiful business of life, nature and geology. She is sustained by plans to build a timber frame home with her husband Will near their waterfall in Maine. Her poetry has been published in Bent Pin, Connecticut River Review, The New Verse News, Wicked Alice., The Bitter Oleander, Poets Against the War, and other places. She also has an essay included in the book Poem, Revised: 54 Poems, Revisions, Discussions (Marion Street Press, April 2008). For a few years, she was bookings coordinator, of the former Wednesday Night Poetry Series as well as a host.

 

      Matryoshka*

      

Too large to fit
      comfortably in the palm
      of anyone's hand
      ample bosom and belly
      turned on the lathe
      years in the making
      Previous shells
      former selves
      nested ages of a life
      are stacked within
      the little-bit-too-round
      little-bit-too-reserved exterior
      Unsung, the skill it takes
      to secret away
      all that is held
      within

* a term for nested Russian dolls where the largest carved, painted doll holds many others inside
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  From "We Shijin Book I" 2004, from Hanover Press