after Linda Gregg
The June trail through Cold Spring Park is dry,
save for a lone, shallow puddle and spongey
patches of ground where moisture lingers.
I am alone and yet utterly surrounded.
Love is the chirps and jeers of bluejays aloft and
the chirring of red-winged blackbirds over the marsh.
Fear is always about what we may lose or have
already lost. I’m happy to cross an occasional bridge.
The trees sustain each other even as broken limbs
lean into younger, stronger trunks. Planks laid
by volunteers are beginning to crack under the weight
of weather and use. Withered weeds edge the path.
My dead rarely speak to me now as summer’s heat
approaches—bird sounds subside, leaves shroud
and water dries up in the winding creek bed.
