Poems by Lauren Slaughter
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Ghost Forests
“As sea levels rise so do ghost forests.”
~The New York Times
by Lauren Slaughter
From Canary Fall 2020
Lauren lives at the southern terminus of the Appalachian Mountains. She washes her rust-red soles—stained by the iron ore dust of the Red Mountain Formation—in the headwaters of the Cahaba River.
Like bare hands
reaching
from below
the grave, these
once-magnificent
woods. Roots
that pulled
from this earth
are choked now
with salt water,
waters meant
for a life
of fish not
sunken seeds
and drowned
burrows. Cold
may no longer
come to this place
and yet the spine
shivers
to see branches
that could have
blessed shade
upon your
very own children
seem to keep reaching
for some
right word
in some right
language
human ears
can hear.
Listen. This
is the silence
of loss. Air
does not whisper
through leaves.
Air that touches
nothing
has nothing
to say.
© Lauren Slaughter