“shifted” by Leah Jay

Trees traverse these fragile years

beetles fill the deepest cracks

shallow boles hold resting birds

in silhouettes of carbon black.

etched on pine are scripted words.

calligraphy to ossify

while half aloft the whitest ash

coats skeletons that hold the sky

bone fingers held by stubborn will.

The undersoil plans in secret tongue

to climb and cover this scaffolding

of branches with new banners hung

while none divine what time will bring.

seasons will bend, painted in their way

a shifted hue for each, maybe.

For now, the trance goes on

as roots comingle and conspire

in close wet earth to speak of green.

Leah Jay moved to California in 1976 and spent her adolescence in a remote mountain house, surrounded by forest. Over decades she watched the California she knew change, degrade, and burn. After the CZU lightning complex fire in 2020 she was thankfully able to move her family to the Pacific Northwest. Surrounded by surviving forests she continues to create art and poetry works as prayers to the interconnectedness, sacredness, and fragility of all life during a time of intensifying ecological collapse.

Featured Image: “tanglewood”, art © Leah Jay – leahjayart.com

Editor: Barbara Harris Leonhard

Amazon Best-Selling Author

Three-Penny Memories: A Poetic Memoir, (EIF-Experiments in Fiction, 2022)

Pushcart Nominee, 2022

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