I sit in the forest, which is no longer a forest,
and trees, which have turned to stumps,
teach me to speak Earth.
I try to repeat the sounds I hear
but there is only night in my mouth.
By my feet lie sheets of bark
covered with Earth’s enigmatic
writings.
I hear birds—startled—cry out
at the sound of felled
or falling trunks.
In childhood, I used to lie
on the grass and watch
lindens and pines
paint and repaint the air
with the brushstrokes
of their crowns.
Their paintings
were water
lilies of the sky.
As I look at a few trees that survived,
a hare stops by and opens its mouth
to translate their rustling:
Look at birds that take off
in search of a new home
Learn bravery from them
So I get up and hike
toward the dawn
with scarred bark
for a map.
—
Agnieszka Tworek was born in Lublin, Poland. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Ploughshares, The Sun, The Southern Review, The Shore, Anthropocene, ONE ART, Lake Effect, The Indianapolis Review, and elsewhere.
