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

Two Poems by Richard Spilman

Richard Spilman, Hurricane, West Virginia, USA

 

Rosy Maple Moth

  

On the façade

by the garage door,

a fleck of color— 

yellow head, pinkish

wings sheltering

in plain sight.

 

All day I’ve dug

the rocky clay

of our hillside,

planting arbor vitae 

where the pines 

fade to brush.

 

It’s a shock after

hardscrabble,

this little splash

of brilliance, this

luxury flowering

on pale brick.

 

Exuberance has,

even here, a place,

a moment to 

offer, no matter

the risk, its brief 

shock of joy.


Spring in the Northern Rain Forest

  

We walk delicately on the year’s

new graves, witness to the havoc 

of spring in a frigid jungle where

every breath is a ghost in the dark:

 

Birdsong and insect ululation. 

the river protesting its new 

boundaries, leaves like morning

rain soughing hymns of praise.

 

A bracket fungus, fallen overnight,

lies covered in frothy mold.

Even where the path remains, it 

sucks at our shoes, as we pick

 

our way, always on the verge 

of slipping into snow-melt runs.

In the dusk of old growth

we pause, look past the tall

 

tortured trunks of red cedar

into canopies weighted with moss

and lichens, growth upon growth.

Even the air seems burdened.

 

Then light breaks through.

A hundred-year Sitka spruce, 

downed in the January storm, 

has cut a wide swath in its fall. 

 

Nearby, an older catastrophe 

crumbles decorously, carved

by larvae, six young daughters

rising from its disintegration.

 

Trees grow smaller, ferns rust 

and the river flares, seeking 

the shingled sea. Where the old

banks were, alders swoon,

 

awaiting the death knell 

of another storm. We pick

through the detritus of spring’s

cruel housekeeping: tumuli

 

of muck bordered by brush

heaps, islets stripped of all

but the gravel beneath,

rocks ripped from their rest.

                        

Every year, the river destroys

what it once obeyed, flattens 

every bank and bar in a rage 

to smooth and straighten.

            

Oceanward, an orange sun burns 

on the curve of dark waves 

that thunder ashore like storm

echoes, inking the sand black.

 

We come to make what we can

of loss, rediscovering old paths

and flagging new, pitching

the tent in unfamiliar places,

 

and on the way, gather tokens 

of our trek: driftwood and garnet, 

photos and daybook entries

bleeding on dampened pages.

 

Richard Spilman is the author of In the Night Speaking and a chapbook, Suspension. His work has appeared in many journals including Poetry, The Southern Review, Canary, Clade Song, Pilgrimage, and Western Humanities Review.

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