Singing on top of Dufur hill, again
Silvered juniper posts
lumpy knobs
a hundred years
of rusted barbed wire
How many Aprils
was I promised?
Meadowlark, meadowlark,
be my sister
Shrine in the Olympic Rain Forest
Colonnades of trees arise from decaying logs,
a slug oozes across heart-shaped elk tracks,
dark waters trickle through ferns.
Today the archaic sun is far away and pale.
No birds sing. Only a dusky grouse
ratchets in mourning.
Under this arch of fallen spruce, the woman
at last understands why no one has found
the remains of a Sasquatch:
clearly, they bury their dead.
*
Penelope Scambly Schott's newest book is HOW I BECAME AN HISTORIAN. She lives in Portland and Dufur, Oregon where she teaches an annual poetry workshop.