Author: poetryfest

In loam
Worms wriggle, and
Insects search. Flowers burst
Through the top layer of soil
Spring looms

A warm breeze brushes my sleeveless arms
Outside the convenient store is near silent tonight
A smooth Montana night with an orange sky
I sit on the bench, smelling sweet grass and hearing water crash

Rustling from my left and trees parting a path
She exits the wood and studies me
I study her, frozen in my seat
She studies me, unalarmed and easy

She gingerly walks toward the seating to my left
On the other side of the store door
She sits on her bottom eyeing my ice cream sandwich
I split the ice cream cookie in half with shaky fingers

I hold it before her
She leans over and I feel her hot breath smell me
She licks the drops of ice cream with her giant tongue
Taking her half into her claws

I forget myself
I should be afraid
Big, brown, furry
Sweaty, hot, with my life in her hands

We look around, hidden beneath the store awning
Looking out at them
Red hats, stars and stripes, holsters, beards
Trucks, cigarettes, red faces, and dirty nails

She huffs hot air from her nostrils
I do too
She looks into my eyes, and mine into hers
I smile with no teeth, she does it back

We stare at each other
Her face, beautiful, feminine, timid
Tired, hurt, surviving
I feel that way too

It feels like forever, this staring
I feel a warm tear slide down my face
I feel the melting ice cream slide to my elbow
I love her, and she loves me

I know her, and she knows me
A tear from her as well
We laugh
And laugh and laugh

She understands me, and I, her
We are unharming to each other
For who could be afraid of such a thing
When so much worse is right there

We were fraternal from womb,
opposite views from a coin.
The only children, you and I,
Birthed to balance, though not join.

Then one day he arrived,
tearing our bond with his cry
Brother Three: Brother Man.
Me against you two combined

He cried and played,
Screamed and cawed,
courting Fire’s attention,
learning to burn and to thaw.

Then I was left,
my form ever cold.
No brother on my side,
Retreating from pole to pole.

The two culprits burn
my pale flesh to the ground
cackling at my tears,
as I slowly melt down.

Author’s Note: Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere have
increased by over 50%, meaning the current CO2 concentration is more than double what it was before the
industrial era began. This statistic scared me, so I wanted to convey this abandonment of equilibrium through Man’s
unquenchable desire for heat and energy.

You want to,
cry aloud.
it was my mistake

Tell me am I am coward,
this guilt is weighing me down

Honeysuckle scent,
suffocating me

If I wasn’t a coward,
would our conversation have
ended differently

You don’t say you’re scared,
And I don’t say “I’m sorry”

When you’re already gone,
beneath the surface.

Layered beneath stone and dirt,
unmoving in sedimentary

Whether burned or buried,
the end isn’t up to me

Imaginary tears
on your face
I scream and cry

The honeysuckle scent
Suffocating me,
but not you.

I’m the one left suffocating
I’m the one left scared.

I burst from the earth, bold and free,
A life force born from the soil
Did anyone sow a seed?
Like plants, my roots too dig deep
Then why do they call me, a different breed?

Small bright flowers, I bear
A beauty wild, beyond compare.
Yet humans pass or coldly stare
“Just a weed, no fragrance, no flair”

But what’s a weed, I long to ask,
For I do nature’s perfect task.
I thrive, I bloom, I seek the sky—
A tiny wonder, reaching high.

So here I stand, with petals spread,
Unloved, unnamed, yet far from dead.
For in my leaves, the world’s alive—
Why not see beauty where I thrive?

One summer afternoon,
when Peonies were at their best,
walking along the Oshawa Creek,
She asked me, Mom, what’s the secret to success?
All I said, ‘go’
consistently like a river,
patiently and strongly, when you hit a rock,
dedicatedly to reach your goal(ocean),
Enjoy your journey!

She said excitedly,
Just like this river! right Mama?
Yes, my darling, just like this river, I affirmed.

I stepped outside
and the hawk was already in her—
shoulders low,
hooked beak working through the feathers,
and into the flesh.

One of ours.
A favorite.

The others chickens watched
from the brush,
silent,
as if they knew.
Death in all its obviousness.

There was no shouting, stamping.
No rushing in.
I stood with it—
this ancient violence,
and this interruption.

She was already gone.
I didn’t want the body torn further.
So I walked towards the hawk
and he sulked off.

I went for the shovel.
The soil was soft.
Where I had buried before.

You hope it doesn’t happen.
But it always might.
The world gets in.
Even here.
Even in this life I’m building.
And part of the job
is burying the dead

Here, where long fields curve
and bees spread apart
the fuzzy middle of flowers,
where loam is loose and dark,
one seed
delays to curl open and rise,
preferring to sleep and dream,
replaying the hidden scene
of its beginning—
the way it rushed—
after songbirds bumped a branch
and wet winds gushed
when Spring sprung from deep sleep
that deep where loam was crushed,
frozen and forgotten—
Oh!
to remember the way one took
and how the loam looked and felt
upon one’s face
(sharp and icy? or damp and warm?)
before a face was even formed.

So many years ago (I can no longer remember how many), you were.
Looking at your eyes, they look back into mine
I fight the throat lump, eyes welling with liquid sentimentality.
Exuberance, youthfulness, perfection.
Every whisker and hair reflect shiny sleek cleanliness of life in its prime.
Your facial features, perfectly chiseled, ears flopped over, perfectly break in unison.
Wet, glistening nose, forehead wrinkled with attention
The symmetry of your markings
Crafted as only a cosmic creator could have executed.
In your place now, there is only the ache.
It arrived the day you left. It remained for a time, then disappeared.
Returning here and there, less and less over time, the memory of you enters my mind.
Compelled by a hint of what was you.
The smell of your rawhide, half-chewed, gnarled, by your canine enthusiasm.
The hole in the back of the leather couch, where as a puppy you chewed it apart
Now a patch in its place; roughly stitched edges doing a terrible job of pretending to blend in.
The dusty dog blanket, still sequined with your hairs
The ever fading earthy scent of you lingers; I wouldn’t wash it after you left, to keep you near.
Those painful last days have long ago passed. Healed over by time’s scar tissue.
You have long since been returned to the earth, wherever you are now.
Your dust and bone blended with the soil and trash.
In this shutter snapped moment, you are alive for as long as this image remains.
You will fade, yellowing with time and light, or be lost to an accidental deletion, emptied.
This last piece of you will be lost.
Never to me.
Not until I can no longer remember.