Sharon Bray, a freelance journalist, photographer and kale-grower living in Orland, publishes the Narramissic Notebook, a journal of poems, pictures, and historical stories. Her poetry leans toward narrative style but stretches into impressionism, far-flung imagination and occasional form play. She has self-published chapbooks of love poems, washline poems and pictures, and has gathered poems and pictures for future collections about Maritime Canada, sisters, fire (she is a member of Orland's volunteer fire department), and farming. Send her an e-mail if you want to know more: mainesbray@gmail.com.

                                                       If I were a praying woman
                                                                                  for Kelly

                                                       I'd pray you into flight
                                                                with hummingbirds to touch
                                                                the face of your hollyhocks,

                                                       I'd pray the blessed mother Mary
                                                                hold you tenderly
                                                                and remove every painful
                                                                thorn that pricks your fingers
                                                                or your heart,
                                                                leaving the scent of salt shore roses.

                                                       I'd pray that William Butler Yeats
                                                                meet you at the gates of an Irish heaven
                                                                with a Tuscan monastery in one corner
                                                                where grateful brothers require as penance
                                                                that you bake forever crusty bread
                                                                and poach pears in their fine wines,
                                                                and you'd find eternal time between sessions with the poets.

                                                                                         Sharon Bray