Three Poems for Red Rose Preserve and Kennebec Estuary Land Trust
by Jeri Theriault
Photograph credit: Philip Carlsen
Apr, 2021
listening to the forest
I walk the Gully Trail the Farm Road Loop
taking i-phone pictures of white pine & paper birch
—my growing-up-Maine habitat.
at the top of the trail I sit on a mossy stump
to write in my journal made of pulpwood
from the kind of trees my grandfather logged
in the north woods. I hear birds
& my own breath not the trees’ sun-stretch
root-reach whatever they say uncluttered
& slow. roots twined by fungi underground
symbiosis & above-ground volatile organic
compounds—I know they keep a party-line
for vital news as when the Sitka willows
battled pests by telegraphing warnings to kin
miles away—CATERPILLARS COMING. STOP.
RELEASE TOXINS. STOP. what are the trees
saying now? I want them to see me—stranger
not enemy. clumsy in my city shoes
skin wrapped snug from sun & soil I head back
to the parking lot pine-scent twig-crunch
my solitary brain numb to arboreal knowing.
wanting blue
Eastern white pines stretch into the sky-dome
creatures of updraft & drift alive with wind
& want. beings of earth they are ambassadors
to air embracing blue the way their roots
hold microbes & worms warm
in the wintering soil. we have forgotten
their worth & silent strength their slow time
as we look up—the way we always do—craving
that pine that very blue for our own.
in the shadow of tallness
we mostly walk past
mosses eyes drawn
by swaying pines
& Cardinals. but here
these low-slung stars
overlooked
underseen weave
lush green
out of the wind’s fray
a thriving tiny sonnet
this tender turn
moss a counterpane
a galaxy weaving
earth & air.
Jeri Theriault’s poetry collections include Radost, my red (Moon Pie Press) and the award-winning In the Museum of Surrender (Encircle Publications). Her poems and reviews have appeared in journals such as: The American Journal of Poetry, The Rumpus, The Texas Review and The Collagist. A 2019 Maine Literary Award winner, Jeri lives in South Portland, Maine. Visit Jeri at jeritheriault.com
Kennebec Estuary Land Trust (kennebecestuary.org) is committed to conserving land and wildlife habitat of the Lower Kennebec and Sheepscot River estuaries. They are a community based membership organization serving the towns of Arrowsic, Bath, Bowdoinham, Dresden, West Bath, Georgetown, Richmond, Westport Island and Woolwich.