"She Welcomes the Philosopher Father on His Return from Africa" by Lois P. Jones

She Welcomes the Philosopher Father on His Return from Africa

The sun in its golden hour lit the land with longing. The daughter ran as the acres ran across the October landscape, out beyond the grazing cows of Trélex and their crystalline bells all the way to the very edge of the old house. A man was walking along the dirt road until he saw her and he too began to run. When he finally reached the child and lifted her, she laughed a laugh that rang like a chime — because a chime will always play whatever the wind brings to it. And she cried daddy, daddy, daddy. Witness — what is witness to watch the winds gather them up in its arms? Her blonde hair falling unbound.

alone near the picnic bench
a nuthatch
on the bare cedar

Lois P. Jones

Lois P. Jones was a finalist in the 2018 Terrain Poetry Contest, judged by Jane Hirshfield. Awards include the Lascaux Poetry Prize in 2018, the Bristol Poetry Prize in 2017, and the Tiferet Poetry Prize in 2012, with work shortlisted for the Bridport Prize in poetry in 2016 and 2017. Jones has work published or forthcoming in New Voices: Contemporary Writers Confronting the Holocaust (Vallentine Mitchell of London, 2019), Narrative, The American Poetry Journal, One, Tupelo Quarterly, Glass, Cider Press Review, and Tinderbox Poetry Journal. Jones’s first collection of poems, Night Ladder, won the Glass Lyre Press Editor’s Choice Award and was long-listed for the Julie Suk Award. She hosts KPFK’s Poets Café in Los Angeles and is the poetry editor of Kyoto Journal.

Headshot: Lia Brooks

Photo Credit: Lois P. Jones