Seed doesn’t know
it will return a plant
once loved, now missing
to special garden spot,
and owner’s heart,
after transition
by storm removal
of original
parental plant.
Poem by Duane L. Herrmann
Duane L. Herrmann, internationally published, award-winning poet and historian, has held a variety of teaching and other positions, now retired. His history and poetry have won awards and are translated into several languages. He has a sci fi novel: Escape from Earth. His full-length collections of poetry are: Prairies of Possibilities, Ichnographical: 173, Praise the King of Glory, Family Plowing, Remnants of a Life, and No Known Address. His poetry has received the Robert Hayden Poetry Fellowship, inclusion in American Poets of the 1990s, the Map of Kansas Literature (website), Kansas Poets Trail and others. His history, By Thy Strengthening Grace, received the Ferguson Kansas History Book Award in 2007. These accomplishments defy his traumatic childhood embellished by dyslexia, ADHD and, now, PTSD. He’s still learning to do human and breathe at the same time.