In the Methow Valley
the chartreuse grass after snow melt is electric desire.
It never fails to catch me out.
I’m erratic. Who isn’t lurching
toward bees buzzing the blue flax
as they gather and spread the future without knowing?
I’m tranced by oil-slick-skinned beetles mating
on lupines and captive
to aspen’s quaking snare. But there’s no escaping
the tally sign along the highway
of deer kills. Everything vibrates—
the wars, and the mayhem
of ravens. Echoes.
How to practice devotion—
like a wren endlessly feeding
hungry mouths, who built a nest in the depression
of a cow’s skull? I have cobbled
a life into being. One day I’ll join the dog
buried under the giant Ponderosa. That wind you’ll hear?
Me, singing from the ravenous earth.
This poem first appeared in RockPaperPoem (2024).
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Suzanne Edison’s book, Since the House Is Burning, by MoonPath Press was published in 2022. Her chapbook, The Body Lives Its Undoing, was published in 2018. Her poetry can be found in The Missouri Review, SWWIM, Solstice Literary Magazine, RockPaperPoem, Whale Road Review, Lily Poetry Review, JAMA, and elsewhere. She teaches expressive writing to caregivers through UCSF Wellness Center for Youth with Chronic Conditions and lives in Seattle.
