Robin Turner has recent work in Literary Mama, Heron Tree, and One (Jacar Press). Her chapbook, bindweed & crow poison, is available from Porkbelly Press. She lives in the Piney Woods of East Texas.
The Way the Sweet Gum Pray
Don’t speak to me of faith these days,
its fabled leap all forward force,
all muscle and trouble, slow mercy.
I’m watching the way the sweet gum pray,
the sugar maple and the oak—a leaf at a time,
in its time, lets go, surrenders into
the late-lit air where it’s met, joined with
something—call it what you will—
something that carries
and does not carry, that moves
with and along, with and along,
with and along, a great whisper.
And everywhere here the tall pines tower,
holy and knowing, bearing witness. Listen—
They are silent as our dead and ever green.
Clementine Unbound 