Advent Calendar Day 13 - November 24
Cover reveal for The Calendar’s Whim—poems by Margaret Randall
Enjoy this excerpt from the new collection by the prolific and legendary author.
Plus, today only, get 24% off preorders for this new release—no code required.
Praise for The Calendar’s Whim
“Neither she nor her work have ever shied from the penetrating questions. Questions that simultaneously invite hope and devastation. … She’s proving to be timeless. Her poems in this collection, however, continue to age with the times.”
—Hakim Bellamy, Inaugural City of Albuquerque Poet Laureate
One of the Lucky Ones
In her city’s Central Park solidarity
wasn’t a word but a warm feeling
soaking her skin with a temperature
she learned in a classroom
of thousands.
Her first child was born at
All Saints Medical Center,
its hidden garden their secret place
when he was four
and the colors of butterflies
were painted by a hand
they imagined together.
Unable to write the unforeseeable
on her daily calendar,
she dressed in familiar clothing,
sure nothing could disrupt
days that became weeks
and weeks years.
But that life diminished
one day to the next,
receded until it disappeared
through the back window of a car
that took her from all she knew.
Exile is now a word
in an unknown language
begging for silence.
She always said she would return
one day when danger
stopped taunting her
from the edges of memory.
Someday, when things were better
and brutal hands no longer
threatened to grab her,
pin her to a time already dead.
Many years passed and she did return,
only to find once familiar streets
leading nowhere
and the houses where she’d lived
changed places with one another.
That’s when she understood
escape hadn’t made her
one of the lucky ones,
only a woman with pages missing
from her book of life,
a taste forever foreign
in her mouth,
faded images fleeing her eyes.
Read more of these poems in THE CALENDAR’S WHIM, the forthcoming book from Margaret Randall.
Also: today only, get 24% off when you preorder this new release (coming March 2026).
About the Author
Margaret Randall is the author, editor, and translator of more than two hundred books. These include several volumes of poetry from Casa Urraca Press, as well as the essay collections Thinking about Thinking, Last Words, and the forthcoming Pages Lost and New. Her talk, “Writing Under Fascism,” has drawn large and engaging crowds at the Albuquerque Museum and at Naropa. You can browse all her Casa Urraca Press titles here.