"On the last day of the world I would want to plant a tree.” — W.S. Merwin
  • Behind the Blackberry Thicket

    (2)
    Posted on April 20th, 2008sherry100 Word Posts, Photography, Poets

    sycamores

    Crashing through, I find a grove,
    sycamore, ash, a single maple.
    The deer take refuge here unhampered
    by the mass of blackberries
    and goldenrod, monarchs and bees,
    that excludes a thing my shape.

    Between the trees
    along the leaf-mold floor,
    grapevines twine like Laocons snakes,
    binding all into slow silence.

    Twenty years since the astonished dog
    cornered a crawdad in what Id thought
    was just another hayfield,
    this wet-weather streambed,
    not a place to mow or plow.

    Focused on the quick
    children, garden, livestock —
    I did not see this wilderness of vines
    and saplings transform itself into a woods.

    Originally published at the New Voices International Project

    Possibly related posts:

      Erin Keane
      Charles M. Whitt
      Gail Chandler
      Couch cat, wilderness cat

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2 Responses to “Behind the Blackberry Thicket”

  1. Sherry, that’s lovely. I like the “leaf-mold floor,” the “slow silence,” and the “wet-weather streambed” that makes the “tranform[ation]” possible.

  2. Thanks, Helen. This poem is one that I continue to think I did a pretty good job with. And, if you discount the title, it is exactly 100 words long.

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Sherry Chandler has received professional development funding and a Professional Assistance Award through the Kentucky Arts Council, the state arts agency, supported by state tax dollars and federal funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. Kentucky Arts Council Sherry has also received an Artist Enrichment grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women. kfw
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