So little noise here; sound
becomes a feeling. My own blood
a humming constant.
I sit by a rock-edged streambed, silent
for the dry season.
In the distance, Pika Creek
hisses like rain.
The mist slows.
Up on the western ridgetop
a slight whisper of motion,
like the ssshhhh
of breeze through treetops,
in this place where there are no trees.
Elena Johnson’s poetry has been nominated for the CBC Literary Awards and the Alfred G. Bailey Poetry Prize. Her work has been published in journals across Canada, as well as in four anthologies. “Silent for the Dry Season” is from her book, Field Notes for the Alpine Tundra, which was published by Gaspereau spring 2015 and was written and researched while she was writer-in-residence at a remote ecology research station in the Yukon’s Ruby Range.
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