The Autumnal Series

 #1 
ten thousand joys and sorrows,
a single silver leaf
under the paperly sky.
beloved, befriended,
then gone, gone, gone.

#2
 ten thousand sorrows and joys,
the slatish grey moon,
the silvery dusk settles in,
my heart leaps into
emptiness, beingness,
the suchness of such. 
beloved, befriended,
then gone, gone, gone.

#3 
the thrumming of my heart,
the bird sings; wings its way
under the autumnal sky.
ten thousand joys and sorrows.

Debra Black is a former feature writer and news reporter with the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest newspaper. Over her 28 plus year career there she won a number of national awards for her journalism, including the National Newspaper Award. She also has won a number of awards for magazine writing prior to her working at the Star. Her poems were first published in University of Toronto literary magazines in the mid-1970s when she was a student. The magazines have long gone, but her love of the written word and poetry has not disappeared. Her most recent work appears on the prestigious literary websites the Queen’s Mob Teahouse and WordCity Literary Journal.  She also has just published a limited edition book of poetry and art in collaboration with a Toronto artist Janne Reuss entitled A Call and Response Images and Words, inspired by the pandemic.

Throughout her career as a journalist, she covered public policy issues such as education and immigration and diversity and has interviewed some of Canada’s leading politicians, writers and thinkers. She has travelled extensively and taught journalism in Rwanda and covered the HIV crisis in South Africa and Swaziland for the Star. While working and raising a child, she continued to write poetry for herself and others. Having left the Star, she now teaches yin yoga and meditation and spends many an hour writing and polishing her poetry, exploring the human condition and themes of love and existence.

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