A journal of art + literature engaging with nature, culture, the environment & ecology

Two poems by Nisha Bolsey

Nisha Bolsey, Chicago, USA

 

winter is not a metaphor

 

you dream of a frozen lake, thick enough to walk on. you walk a mile out alone in silence, dodge the ice gaps that could swallow you like quicksand.

 

you dream of a world covered in water—shrouding every treeline, brick terrace, windowsill. under the dream: cars spinning out, black ice, red noses. you dream the frozen sky punctured by shiny flakes, snow that turns to pearl underneath your feet.

 

you dream the final snowfall, the last hungry sky.

 

*

 

snow shelters roots

refuge for irises 

blooming only

in the winter sun

 

and under rays 

subdued, flora 

slumbers, bends 

so that it may grow

 

*

 

awake to winter—one hundred degrees.

 

we meet under the cool shade of the night moon, 

roaming the earth like strangers, 

pressing our toes against the swollen

soil. we listen for water, run our

hands through the wind.

we remember

or we don’t

 

or maybe the water’s gone

 

and we’re not here at all.

On the Shores of Lake Michigan

when everything 

has finished dying

things will grow

wildly

 

in hollow waters

algae will flourish

blooming death-green flowers 

 

someday, someone will take a bite

someone winged, or horned, or scaled

and will survive 

and leave children 

and grandchildren

to tread abandoned trails 

and waterways

 

day after day 

they will keep

cool in acid waters, 

warm by purple fires, 

dry under concrete ruins, will

hunt under deep green skies, will

try again

 


  

Nisha Bolsey is a writer and activist from the Pacific Northwest living in Chicago. She is a third-generation immigrant and an MFA candidate in poetry at Columbia College Chicago where she teaches writing. Her work focuses on wildness, social justice, our relationship with our environment, and the end of the world.

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