Poems by Susan Solinsky

The Walk

by Susan Solinsky

From Canary Winter 2021-22

Susan lives in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada on land tread by the Northern California Nisenan tribe for thousands of years. Mule deer, coyotes, gray foxes, bears, mountain lions and raptors find homes and prey among the ponderosa pines, madrones, black oaks and cedars.

Sodden rains
came
that winter day,
then a white mist
defying gravity
Iifted
from ebony pavement
and red clay soils,
from deer grass
collapsed by the wet.

Dense as breath,
vapor appeared,
welling up
from downed cedar limbs
and crushed oak leaves:
a damp exhalation
beneath
what could be seen.

All the wetness
on the land
reversed itself
and moved upward,
returning again
to darkening clouds,
to recycle itself,
blanketing the air
with a sweetness
calling any heart
to dance
between earth and sky.

And there,
beyond
the narrow road,
in the two acre
thirsty valley,
grand sugar pines
vanished,
miraculously
reappeared,
transparent,
next to black oaks
shedding
brilliant lamps
of yellow leaves
in the early dusk.

There too,
above
the silent fog
lifting
from mossy bellies,
above
the saw-toothed pines
and purpling clouds
rose
a perfect moon –
blanched
and crisp
as hot sugar
steaming
in the watery sky.