Last month’s flowers are blooming again. What’s cut back and
thriving like crazy. The off white roses, the Mexican heather,
the yellow trumpet flowers. It is never easy to take to what’s
gone. Cut back, overrun earth. To look beyond the polluted and
the drawn. Earth beyond chemicals and junk. Beyond cities
full of loss as if it is within us to reclaim it all. To rise up over what’s
downed. More than simply refinancing or collecting GNP info.
More than talk of math. Or talk of doom. Or talk of high powered rifles.
I walk over the back field where I live. Looking for a way forward.
Past the old sycamores full of crows. The palm trees in the wind
overloaded with date seeds. Past the pink poppies in the grass
growing along the edge of the driveway. Land taking itself back.
The dirt pushes up against my feet as I walk. I can feel the gravity.
Walking back over the same land as if I can claim it again and again.
Walking past the green pods hanging off the mesquite, past
the white wildflowers covering the back hills, past the barrel cactus
and the new moon. Step by step. Life on earth. Taking it back.
Author Bio:
Charlene Langfur is an organic gardener, a southern Californian, a Syracuse University Graduate Writing Fellow. Her most current publications include poems and essays featured in Poetry East, Weber, Sugar Mule, Earth's Daughters, The MacGuffin, The Manhattanville Review, Evening Street Review, and Still Point Arts Quarterly.
thriving like crazy. The off white roses, the Mexican heather,
the yellow trumpet flowers. It is never easy to take to what’s
gone. Cut back, overrun earth. To look beyond the polluted and
the drawn. Earth beyond chemicals and junk. Beyond cities
full of loss as if it is within us to reclaim it all. To rise up over what’s
downed. More than simply refinancing or collecting GNP info.
More than talk of math. Or talk of doom. Or talk of high powered rifles.
I walk over the back field where I live. Looking for a way forward.
Past the old sycamores full of crows. The palm trees in the wind
overloaded with date seeds. Past the pink poppies in the grass
growing along the edge of the driveway. Land taking itself back.
The dirt pushes up against my feet as I walk. I can feel the gravity.
Walking back over the same land as if I can claim it again and again.
Walking past the green pods hanging off the mesquite, past
the white wildflowers covering the back hills, past the barrel cactus
and the new moon. Step by step. Life on earth. Taking it back.
Author Bio:
Charlene Langfur is an organic gardener, a southern Californian, a Syracuse University Graduate Writing Fellow. Her most current publications include poems and essays featured in Poetry East, Weber, Sugar Mule, Earth's Daughters, The MacGuffin, The Manhattanville Review, Evening Street Review, and Still Point Arts Quarterly.
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