blower resounding over the valley
oaks. My ears vibrate with the falling
water of sound waves, of decibels blessed
with neither harmony nor melody.
The noise stops. I am grateful for the rest.
The noise starts. I am grateful for the trees.
The engine crescendos, bursts with the exhaust
of an oil refinery, the outgassing of a hand-
held motor conveying dead leaves—habitat
of snake and ground squirrel, protector
of box turtles—from one unwanted place
to another. I am grateful for the sky.
Every Friday, every Monday, every weekend
in tandem with the neighbors’ leaf blowers,
a grand concerto of two-stroke engines, dusty
tubas dipping and swaying as the leaves
and sounds circle and fly until all of creation
reverberates with thundering discord, leaves,
fragments of gratitude and debris, the furious
drilling of our ears that no longer belong to us.
Valley oak and blue oak leaves clutch
at polluted air like infant monkeys
wrapping their small fingers around
a piece of wood in the old experiments
on attachment. You remember the black
and white photos, the trusting creatures
clinging to the wooden board covered
in cloth by scientists wanting to peer inside
motherhood.
O inimitable milk of unnecessary invention.
—
Renée M. Schell’s debut collection, Overtones, was published in 2022 by Tourane Poetry Press. Her poetry appears in New Verse News, Catamaran Literary Reader, and many other journals. She was lead editor for the anthology (AFTER)life: Poems and Stories of the Dead. A Best of the Net nominee, she holds a Ph.D. in German Studies and also taught at a Title I school in San José, California. Find her at www.reneemschell.org.
