She prowls the hills looking for
bone shipwreck amongst sagebrush,
pieces of animal with shot out
bright liquid eye now drained
and dried, the wind meeting what
remains. She will salvage fragments,
retracing their shapes on wood, laboring
for hours building back in colors.
No one ever told her life was a stone.
The land her father bought with tears
in his eyes will soon be sold.
Her babies cried and then grew up.
Living far off, they plan days
she could not have imagined.
She stays there, standing at dusk
among the rustling Willow trees
out past the pear orchard's edge,
wanting to learn, at last, how to be still.
©
is from Yakima, WA. She has published in Copper Nickel, Kestrel, The Tusculum Review, James Dickey Review, and has work forthcoming in NewSouth, Rattle, and the Tulane Review. Her chapbook "All Things are Ordered' is out from Finishing Line Press, and she teaches at the University of Georgia.
We’ve published three more poems by Blair: “The Test Scorer,” “The Book of No Account,” and “When.”
