Poems by Mary Kathryn Wiley
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Pine Stand 2005
by Mary Kathryn Wiley
From Canary Fall 2024
Mary Kathryn lives along the Fall Line in the Ocmulgee River Basin, among loblolly pine trees, sycamore, magnolia and sweetgum, where long summers are loud with cicadas, crickets, and tree frogs, and autumn is always brief.
I don’t remember what my grief was.
Sixteen, searching for a place to weep.
I picked my way through the chaos of a clearcut—
sawdust, blackberry, shelf fungus, poison ivy.
A great open wound on the earth’s face.
I passed the stump where I used to meditate,
watching the big sky over all that devastation.
Until I stepped into a sacred space:
utterly still, dark and cool;
a young pine forest. Only pines. Slender,
narrow trunks like columns; canopy of
green needles. Carpet of brown quills.
Here I stood. Here I wailed, bruising
my knuckles on bark.
© Mary Kathryn Wiley