We make our home on the mountain
Alongside those who make their home
Between the branches and the twigs dangling midair
Their silky shelters are the shape of impermanence and plenty
Vultures are the poets here
Hickory nuts write letters on the land
I need new ears and eyes
For this terrain, in the fall
I keep watch
For the remains of a spider-sucked grasshopper
And the green beetle who dies while sunbathing
On her skeleton hanging by a thread
Death eats upon death
Layer upon layer
Life crawls upon life
Personal space is impossible if you are a tree
The pond made of iron and clay
Is the scent of rusty water, of summer camp
And muddy handfuls fashioned into bowls
I walk with a broom to shoo the copperheads away
Two pileateds tell me this biome belongs to them
A curious armadillo could care less
I praise the animals who dress as leaves and sticks
And the wheel bug who hopes to be a dinosaur
So many pretend to be another
While I ask too many questions
A voice rolls through the canopy
Now I know why some believe in talking forests
I want too much
Wish for the wrong things
New knees
A better heart and a finer brain
In this world
On this bluff
I hear the words,
“Be Still”
I am 8, 9, 10
Walking through these woods
There’s a wild muscadine vine
Near an old yellow pine
I pluck a grape and
Swallow the earth and leathered sour
The taste meets me where I am
A wild body, fissured and enough
Beautiful!!!!
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