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Dave Bonta
A dark waterfall of fur
slipping down the rocks at
the river’s edge, soft yoke
no neck will ever wear.
Though green, I am no plant.
Two kingdoms live in me, but no ruler.
I’m a colonist of places
where nothing else can survive.
Death comes to the hemlock trees
in grayish white clots the size of pinheads.
High in the mountains
one hayfield remains uncut.
A doe’s ear twitches.
Bed of the Dry Fork
scored for tic-tac-toe: water fills all
the squares with zero.
Camp at the woods’ edge.
Morning sun brings rhododendrons
into your tent.
Steep banks, big boulders,
pools – everything but otters
in Otter Creek.
At Dolly Sods
when the wind slows down, it’s delicious:
wild azaleas.
When they cut the forest,
underfoot the piece
meal of it
what was once gray sand
now glitters under lichen
after dark the lunar
landscape of it
shivery with crickets
dense with ambiguities
the way bare wood weathers
or old snow collects grime
aging in place
lost in a maze of cracks
i have taken my micro
dose of humility
the high line buzzes
with ghosts of power
that gap between
crowns of adjacent trees
and what goes on underground
just one fling
on the way up
fox grape
Solomon’s seal
withered leaves curl around
the glossy black drupe
crustose lichen on a rock
its complex inner life
Having melted the snow above it,
a black stone glistens
in its pit.
All thaws seem abrupt.
Lichens slicked with meltwater
glow a lurid green.
I’m feverish—might I, too,
burn a hole
clear through to spring?
Through bushes half obscured, a marble slab
Peers out like a pale face. Inscribed upon
Its weathered surface that the lichen growth
And winter’s storms have blurred, a few brief words
The curious eye may spell with labored care.
To “H” and “M” - perhaps - and the terse phrase
So haunting in its stark simplicity
And pathos, - “Lost at sea.” The changeless gulfs
Of ocean knew the dead man mentioned here
Where bushes riot o’er an empty grave,
But what old friend remembers him today?
Ofttimes, no doubt, upon the wet sea sand
He traced his name in childhood, while the waves
Erased the halting script. Another hand
Has etched that name in form more durable;
But year by year, the ceaseless ebb and flow
Lichen, mistletoe, aloft
In the dying croft,
Leaf the winter trees.
light spring rain &
green lichen on the roof
of the birdhouse