Along a sun-baked path, balmy breezes sway Queen-Anne’s lace.
Yellow and lilac swirl through meadows gone wild. A cluster of cows
drink from a stone trough. Shirtless farmers ride atop tractors,
herd and hurl hay bales, wipe salty sweat from their eyes. Feathered
branches braid a sultry shade for mid-day walkers. Gray gauze veils
a once bluebird sky. Manure, sweet hay and ash mingle on the horizon
in orange haze—like the high risk warnings we were once taught to heed.
west coast smoke drifts east
New Englanders gasp for breath—
nature’s shrill alarm
—
Laurie Rosen is a lifelong New Englander. Her poetry has appeared in Gyroscope Review, Zig Zag Lit Mag, Oddball Magazine, The Inquisitive Eater: New School Food, One Art, Please See Me and elsewhere. Laurie won first place in poetry at the 2023 Marblehead, MA Festival of the Arts.
