On the Seawalla community gallery of new writing, art and commentary hosted by Ron Slate

Clearcut

 

Such rough green sorrows,

trees

laid down, crumpled

and split. No loud amens

to solemnize. Crack

in a forest, echoes sucked away,

river sighs remain.

Hard men of brute muscle

leveling, sweat scrolling, food

on the table, as though blessings.

 

After the cut, yellowed air,

a choke

of particles, of sour wings,

logs piled on trucks that shudder

over mudded roads

to flee down highways

past moss-swept boulders and stumps

that sit like rotting teeth

across the hills

where wind gathers speed, unimpeded.

 

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

 

My Dead Husband’s Birthday

 

The waters are rising. The trees collude

with the wind to arc and bend. A smear

of swifts pushes off to the north.

I’ve built a stone chambered cairn

where I can buffer the worst of grief.

Most days it stands firm, glinting in

muffled light or winking rain.

But cairns have chinks. Things get in.

 

Today the sky is muddled and the air,

woolen-thick. The troubled world

goes on with or without.

Time is a stumble and when I count

the years he’s been gone, it’s a puzzle,

and the tracery of my life lacks a center.

I’m growing old alone. I circle myself,

days falling out of the frame, tug

at the loose threads of my old green sweater,

the slow unraveling.

 

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

 

Heartbeats in a Pandemic

 

I’m a remark,

a sedimentary layer,

the pause of a canoe paddle,

a polite refusal.

 

The weeks go on as I dutifully gaze

from the window, waiting for birds.

Any bird is welcome during the day,

days to follow, blues among gray.

 

I’m a comma,

the fall away petals,

a signature in dust,

cloth remnants.

 

I make no plans, the obvious

settling in my bones, the dark

and light, dark and light, a need

to scream tucked in a pocket.