Herewith, the latest selection from dusted-off published poetry and short fiction, circa 1970s vintage and beyond....
Taming This Wilderness
The wind picks up the snow
our snowshoes lift
and whirls it,
stinging our faces.
The sky is a blue meadow
with clouds like sheep
scudding its expanse.
From a stand of hemlock
chickadees excite
the air. We leave
the flats to wind
down a ravine; there
where the creek is frozen,
find shelter
as above the wind moans
through the trees,
clacking the beechtops.
We pass one hareway
after another,
the byways dotted
with pellets and piddles.
Shifting snow through bracken
we flush a grouse
to heavy panic. About us,
spruce and cedar
rise in symmetrical ghostforms.
We misplace time here,
answering a challenge
long past, taming this wilderness.
c. 1978 Rita Rosenfeld
published in Origins, December 1978
No comments:
Post a Comment