Listen: there are birds
in the train station, creaking
from the rafters
like the swing set
you once flew from,
singing to the sky,
your voice high and clear.
The forest teaches
where to look—even when
it’s far away, pretend
leaves overhead.
Watch them flicker
like pigeons, flutter-hungry
and quick. In the station,
people pass, plastic
on their arms thanking them
for shopping.
You want to tell them
about the language of birds,
trees, and angels—that each
burl born from injury
makes a hidden map.
That we are all
we need. But it’s all
too much,
what we’ve taken.
What is left. Listen:
along the highway,
there’s a forest
no person has walked
and you, only you,
can hear it.
This poem first appeared in Volume Poetry (Vol. 4, Issue 1).
—
Rachel Dillon has taught creative writing at colleges and high schools throughout New England and currently serves as Managing Editor of Ploughshares literary journal. A recipient of the inaugural Susan Kamil Scholarship from the BINC Foundation, Rachel has also received support from the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference, The Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, and the Robert Pinsky Global Fellowship. Her writing can be found in Poet Lore, Verse Daily, Asheville Poetry Review, The Adroit Journal, and in the forthcoming essay collection DRIVEN TO WRITE: 45 Writers on the Motives and Mysteries of their Craft (Routledge 2025).
