Barbara Harris Leonhard Poetry | One of the greatest modern American poet

Barbara Harris Leonhard

Senescence 
 

The coneflowers  

sway in a breeze 

The life of each blossom, 

slowly fading 

A bumblebee flits  

from stamen to stamen 

Another alights on my silver hair 

Then springs off, seeking 

a heartier bloom. 

 

August 5, 2025 

 

Winter Prayers 

 

The sound of snow is holy. 

Old bark listens to the lilting chants 

 

of processions of children  

on drifting banks. 

 

Laughter resounds as accolades. 

Sleds leave trails to be filled with new pilgrims. 

 

Cardinals trumpet requiems on brittle limbs, 

hanging tenuously in blizzards. 

 

Squirrels forage in frozen soil under a white sky— 

The sun has its own prophecy in ice. 

 

Mountains awaken to the tired hikers  

seeking sanctuary. 

 

Pines stand as preachers— 

Creeks are too frozen for parables. 

 

I have a warm hearth by a fire. 

My window opens to this temple,  

 

bringing me inside myself 

to listen to the prayers of snow. 

 

September 11, 2025 

The Girl with the Pearl Earring  

The pearl is a healed wound. - Mulheres de alma curada. 

It’s not about what she’s wearing,  

the palette-approved  

lapis lazuli, ultramarine turban 

coarse, yellowed scarf 

bronzed frock 

 

It’s where she’s venturing, 

into translucent green waves,  

the rising obliquity on her path, 

to fancy her palate, 

that which he knows may wound 

his creation, caught in transient flutter. 

 

She briefly turns a feathery step 

away from the looming umbra 

Her dewy skin glistens  

against the abyss 

Her unblinking eyes shimmer as pearls, 

alert & expectant 

Her demure lips part  

into a glossy question 

 

he gently arranges her light  

into vibrant pearl luster 

& strokes the linen  

of her shadows, Why 

 

do we bring innocence  

into the world, 

but to shock obscurity? 

Barbara Harris Leonhard is the author of Three-Penny Memories: A Poetic Memoir (2022) and The Lost Book of Zeroth (2025). She is co-author of Too Much Fun to Be Legal (2024) and Broken Rengay: Unruly Poetry (2025). She’s a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. Trending Poets named her Poet of the Year in 2023 and 2024. Her poetry has been translated into Italian, Albanian, and Chinese. She is the editor for MasticadoresUSA and FEED THE HOLY. And Co-Bookshelf editor on LatinosUSA. Her blog: Extraordinary Sunshine Weaver.