Witness to the mast year.

Witness to the drought.

 

eighteen bluebirds at the peak of the tree

sibilant, more cells sloughed on,

sloughed off, stuffed

into a duffel bag

 

plants always want to grow: remember

 

descending spike due to the leaf out, ascending

to the atmosphere, warming up out of the leaf

loss, the annual, cyclical

 

The future will be warmer.

 

Each trunk out my window is orange, and the feeders need filling.

We all want to bask like a dozen turtles,

write our wrongs as slips

 

***

Paige Menton grew up in Birmingham, Alabama and earned a bachelor’s in comparative literature from Brown University. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Kestrel, Fourth River, LVNG, Spiral Orb, Clade Song, ecopoetics, and other journals. She teaches writing and naturalist studies to homeschoolers near Philadelphia.