I find the patch of moss where I once spent the night
Author: Dave Bonta
I live in an Appalachian hollow in the Juniata watershed of central Pennsylvania, and spend a great deal of time walking in the woods. My books of poetry include FAILED STATE: HAIBUN, ICE MOUNTAIN: AN ELEGY, BREAKDOWN: BANJO POEMS, and ODES TO TOOLS.
cast-iron porch chairs
the paint may be chipping but what fine shadows
fields already green
between this ridge and the next still brown, still blue
two hepaticas
a strand of silk joins their hairy stems
plastic trail marker
the click beetle’s antennae sweep back and forth
trailing arbutus
an eyeful of ratty leaves when I bend down to sniff
traveling together
the Norfolk-Southern logo and a graffiti tag
a line of balloons
beside the campus elms bobbing drunkenly
wood frog egg-mass
anchored to a projecting twig a gleaming ring
slow Saturday
the quarry trucks sit spotless beside the aggregate
between the blue stones
the snowplow pushed off the road yellow coltsfoot wheels
a phoebe catches flies
above the old Black Hawk hayrake on the barn bank
