This week we have an anagram poem, meaning that each word at the end of a line is an anagram of the title word. The poet writes that after choosing “hereafter” as her anagram word, Amelia Earhart flew into her mind and the poem. We are left with a lovely, brief ode to this figure who lives on in our individual and collective imaginations.

In June, Linda Aldrich became Portland’s sixth poet laureate. She teaches English at Southern Maine Community College, and her most recent book is “March and Mad Women” (Cherry Grove Collections, 2012).

Hereafter

By Linda Aldrich

We think of you often Amelia Earhart,

never earth-

bound, freer

than other women, you went farther, feather-

ing our imagination with your rare

and fearless heart.

You never came down, but rather

fly through our mind’s ether,

finding each day an interior reef,

where you land on your feet

with astonishing heft.

Gibson Fay-LeBlanc is poet who lives in Portland. Deep water: Maine Poems is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Poem copyright © 2018 Linda Aldrich. It appears here by permission of the author. For an archive of all the poems that have appeared in this column, go to www.pressherald.com/tag/deep-water.