“It reached us. It passed us,
totally unimpressed.”
— from “Small Rain”
by Norman MacCaig
storm boughs bucking
far up the cedar trunk
wave like arms of a woman
too busy for fitness, flesh
under raised limbs flapping —
each branch conducts a breeze
in a direction different
from emerald counterparts —
paler tones for her
virginal upward gestures
summoning in small offspring
who play in downpour
and (made mad by mud)
reach and pass that point
of the icy shaking skinny frailties
their mother sees, her wanting
to fatten them against frost
when rain chunks up
David Zieroth‘s The November Optimist will be published by Gaspereau Press this fall. In 2008 he founded The Alfred Gustav Press, a micro press for publishing poetry.
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