Paul Willis
Bio:
Paul Willis has published six collections of poetry, the most recent of which are Deer at Twilight: Poems from the North Cascades (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2018) and Little Rhymes for Lowly Plants (White Violet Press, 2019). He is also the author of an eco-fantasy novel, The Alpine Tales (WordFarm, 2010); a YA Elizabethan time-travel novel, All in a Garden Green (Slant, 2020); and the essay collections Bright Shoots of Everlastingness (WordFarm, 2005) and To Build a Trail (WordFarm, 2018). He is a professor of English at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California, and hosts an annual reading in Los Padres National Forest to honor the life and work of the late poet William Stafford. www.pauljwillis.com
Unanswered
A stack of letters on my desk waits for reply—not urgently, for those who wrote knew several days would pass before I read their thoughts, and I in turncan take my time in contemplating what to say. Meanwhile, the inbox on my screen beckons and beckons, crooking its finger like a hooker on Haley Street,and I obey as if in a trance. The pile of mail on my desk cantilevers in crazy ways, growing oldand anonymous—but patient—yes, patient as a tortoise crossing desert sandwhen row on row of solar panels, dark and flashing, settle upon its ancient home.
