Blackberries
four steps from the back porch—a dozen steps and three or four breaths farther on is a stream you can cross with one long stride, unless there’s been rain upstream one black spruce towers over the west end of this log house in the clearing—surrounded and secluded by white pines, red oak, and hickory, tucked into the slope on the edge of the sheltering, inviolable forest the dogs run free in the clearing—the folks with the giant confederate flag strung between two trees are more than a mile down the road and gunfire from the firing range is audible only if the wind is strong from the west the moon lurks behind the ridge, stars romp uncensored and giddy in the deep-black, unpeopled sky as we walk naked from the porch, breathe forest through our night skin—we pick blackberries and wonder if the bear will return tomorrow if one or two things had gone differently, this is how it might have been __________ Home / Escapee / Stories / Poems / Non-fiction / Contact / Links |