Even though it is dead
there is a vibration radiating
from the grey moth as I carry it
between my fingers
to the compost bucket
in the kitchen sink.
With the fine ash
it has left behind
I paint a solitary charcoal stripe
down my arm.
A fire marshal was here earlier:
It’s not the law yet,
she told us, but we should
clear the logs stacked below the eaves,
the coyote fence could come out—
the ancient pine latillas,
all their sagas—
taken to the dump. She leaves
a fireproofing plan
with a colorful checklist,
emergency equipment
is suggested: Our road
out of the canyon
is narrow.
When the rains do come,
they pond.
Those first few days,
nothing dries up. Dark moisture
suspends like smoke
in clouds above the long spine
of mountainous rock. My shoes
slab with mud as I walk along the ravine.
A piñon root has found
its way into granite
then out
and over
cascading
down the coarse facing
before crawling back
under rock, again
finding soil.
This privacy
a joy I cannot
steal for myself.
—
Elizabeth Jacobson was the fifth Poet Laureate of Santa Fe, New Mexico and an Academy of American Poets 2020 Laureate Fellow. Her third collection of poems, There are as Many Songs in the World as Branches of Coral will be published in 2025 by Free Verse Editions/Parlor Press. Her previous book, Not into the Blossoms and Not into the Air, won the New Measure Poetry Prize (FVE/Parlor Press, 2019) and the 2019 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award for both New Mexico Poetry and Best New Mexico Book. She is the reviews editor for the online literary journal Terrain.org
.
