Stealing through a tunnel of green at six
in the morning, I’m alone in the woods.
The Swainson’s thrush calls its water drop
sound from a thicket; elusive grosbeak,
perched unseen above the live oak canopy,
sings a drunken robin song. Bracken ferns
unfurl delicate fronds that will reveal fractal
patterns a few weeks out.
After days of crunching on the gravelly fire
road to avoid puffing joggers on narrow trails,
I reenter the forest; my tread on dirt is soft.
I’m ten years old again, pretending
to stealth walk on the earth like an Arapaho
hunter. Light flashes in the bay tree and
the whistle-tick of the Pacific slope flycatcher
pulls me up short. I’m still hunting.
Difficult conversations with people about
longed-for change tamped down in my head,
I’m breath, joy spring and scent of thimbleberry.
Only, tarry with me in this uncovered moment,
let’s get one good look at those reclusive souls,
the birds.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kathryn Jordan’s poems appear in the New Ohio Review, the Comstock Review, Crosswinds, and Birdland, among others, and are forthcoming in The Sun and Oberon. Winner of the San Miguel de Allende Writers Conference Prize for Poetry and the Sidney Lanier Poetry Award, her book is “Riding Waves” (Finishing Line Press, 2018.) She’s a finalist for this year’s Tucson Festival of Books Literary Prize, New Ohio Review Prize for Poetry and Comstock Review’s Jessie Bryce Niles Chapbook Contest. Kathryn loves to hike the East Bay hills, translating bird song to poems whenever possible.