What’s incomplete in me seeks refuge
in blackberry bramble and beech trees,
where creatures live without dogma
and water moves in patterns
more ancient than philosophy.
I stand still, child eavesdropping on her elders.
I don’t speak the language
but my body translates best it can,
wakening skin and gut, summoning
the long kinship we share with everything.
This poem first appeared in Blackbird (Grayson Books, 2019).
—
Laura Grace Weldon lives in a township too tiny for traffic lights where she works as a book editor, teaches writing workshops, serves as Braided Way editor, and chronically maxes out her library card. Laura was Ohio’s 2019 Poet of the Year and is the author of four books.
