Wind blows stalks of hollyhocks
against the back wall
like someone knocking on a door
a hunter's truck whines
along the highway
far off a dog barks
stifling the owl's last call
out a window the silly sunflowers
cry open their late mouths—
why is the sun so slow so far away
sky gun-metal over the hills
where winter will soon empty the trees
snow fill them up again
the earth behaving as if nothing were wrong?
I am trying to love what lives
a little longer—
all the yellow leaves that whirl
and fall to the ground with no regret
bright berries of mountain ash
each one a little sun.
Beth Paulson has three published
collections of poems, TheTruth
About
Thunder (2001), The
Company of Trees (2004), and Wild
Raspberries (Plain View Press,
2009), as
well as a CD of
nature poetry, By Stone By Water. Her work was nominated for 2007 and 2009 Pushcart Prizes. She has
taught college writing for over twenty years at
California State University Los Angeles and now lives near Ouray, Colorado,
where she teaches writing and creativity workshops. Her
poems have been published in many literary magazines, and her work is included
in anthologies published by Houghton Mifflin Press and University of Texas
Press.
