We’re subjects of the wind, you may have heard.
We grow together, speak and moan and sing.
We harmonize our branches for a bird
to nest or roost, the mating birds of spring.
We like sun’s rays, we like a raindrop’s ping.
We grow a leaf to make delicious air.
When lightning breaks, we feel the suffering.
We are this paper and this house. We care
for you and try to make you more aware.
We read your books and write a tremulous
inscription on a sky no longer bare:
to cloud to grave to field to sea to us.
We listen closely, standing by in trust,
then razed by chainsaws and a glutton’s lust.
—
Mary Meriam studied poetry at Columbia University (MFA) and Bennington College (BA). She works as an editor and publisher of lesbian poetry and art, and teaches in the MFA program at the University of Arkansas. Her most recent poetry collection is Pools of June (Exot Books, 2022). Her poems have appeared in Literary Imagination, Literary Matters, Poetry, Post Road, Prelude, Rattle, Subtropics, and The Poetry Review.
