Yesterday I slept with a redwood, sharing your forest.
Today, I kissed your bark while another spoke through stillness.
Stop, listen to its voice softer than a lover’s touch. Then
my broken sneakers climbed down the old mountain loggers’
searching for the whispering Big River. Each step challenged
every muscle. The upward climb caused hearts to dance double time
as ears streamed a steady sweat. We hiked past three-piles of berry
topped scat wondering, was this a Black Bear or a Mountain Lion?
Bubbles, our magic daschund grandpup snifs the path to our cabin.
Mendocino marks distinct trails as redwoods whisper in open clearings
filling air with stillness. Stop and listen, afterwards recline in stillness.
A bee rests on my towel.
—
Poet, artist, instructor, Clarissa Jakobsons, earned a B.F.A. from Kent State University, twice featured poet in Paris, at The Shakespeare and Co. Bookstore, and won First Place at the Akron Art Institute New Words Competition. Her 2023 poem from Baltic Amber in a Chest received a Pushcart nomination. She writes, “Don’t be surprised to see my inner artist kicking sandcastles, climbing Mount Diablo, painting Provincetown dunes, or walking under an Ohio crescent moon.”
