Jake Goldwasser, Brooklyn, New York, USA
The land will yield ragwort and bluebells and brambles
without intervention. Leaves that taste
like sour apples, tufts that sheep can eat,
and huge clouds of fruit flies and midges.
A little effort and the land will yield
leeks and radishes and tarragon. Neat rows
of sprouts will greet your afternoons. Tilth
and sunlight and rain. The land will yield
to the intentions of careful hands.
Here is an example:
border collies stay low
to the land and shepherd with their eyes.
Welsh collies are distinguished only by their actions.
They make rounds and hike tails high
to make their outlines known in tall scrubland.
They raise themselves like hands. The land will be
unyielding. It will carve grooves in your shins with
shark teeth that go loose. It will pool and suck at your ankles
underground. Your toes will mingle with rhizomes
and mushrooms. Keep your nose as low as a hound’s—
the ground will yield a foothold for the heels
you sink toward a first step forward, down; will yield
rags and stories; with the right girding will yield
croaks and crickets, elms and oaks and hazels;
the magenta dye of beetroots on a plate,
the leatherworker's tanned hide of your feet.
Jake Goldwasser is a linguist, cartoonist, and poet based in Brooklyn. His work can be found in The New Yorker, The Spectacle, Homonym, Queen Mob's Teahouse, Revue Pøst, The Bookends Review, and forthcoming in The Meadow. He is interested in poetry that explores uncertainty in humans’ relationships with language, the environment, and the future.