Inches forward on spikes as thin
as spider’s silk, barely whispers
her presence tiptoes
over umber leaves
crouches so close she hears the rush
of water through their veins
Dead-heading daisies in my garden,
I almost crush her sleek body
blended to blades of grass as she slips
beneath a leaf
that dwarfs her shadow journeys
through sticks of twisted bark
seeks sustenance
and a temporary temple
I want to tread gingerly
through everything
that falls rots weeps on this earth.
She knows
the way better disturbs little
carries one hundred million years
of ancestral knowledge
inside her wisp of prayer
This poem first appeared in Pinesong (2023).
—
Joanne Durham is the author of To Drink from a Wider Bowl, winner of the Sinclair Poetry Prize (Evening Street Press, 2022) and the chapbook, On Shifting Shoals (Kelsay Books, 2023). Her poetry appears in Poetry South, Banyan Review, Feral, Vox Populi and numerous other journals and anthologies. She lives on the North Carolina coast, with the ocean as her backyard and muse. Visit her at www.joannedurham.com.
