Poems by Madison Jones
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Off Season
by Madison Jones
Madison lives in the Pawtuxet River Basin which feeds into the Narragansett Bay Watershed, on the unceded territories of the Niantic, Narragansett, and Mashpee Wampanoag tribes where he writes and works with local community partners to build projects that support social and environmental justice.
We rise early to walk the stone path
along the high ridge. At the edge of town,
an impatient donkey tosses in its saddle,
shifting weight and drawing a foreleg underbelly
like a heron fishing in his stall, watching us
wind up the hillside into morning fog that becomes
a soft dew in the rising sun, offering scant relief
to parched green ruptures along the trail.
Below us, the lava cliffs hurl themselves
into the sheer blue caldera waters,
and the empty little town we’d slept in
resembles nothing more than a postcard
from a time before tourists choked the place,
or ancient volcanic ash scored away the edges,
a fresco from Atlantis with shadows of men
against the whitewashed sheen of cave houses.
A distant cloud interrupts the horizon
as dogs guide donkeys up and down staircases,
and a lone boat draws itself toward the dock.
Beneath them, the volcano turns in its sleep.
© Madison Jones