S. B. Merrow: A Becoming Place

A pop-up wilderness west of the Piedmont,
folded land of sudden impediments 
scored by creeks and runs, 
and linked by bird and folk 
to well-spaced cousins 
in the north, where brooks
gather sunlight from the peaks.
 
I saw them first from 10,000 feet up—
feral cats asleep on a furry map,
their muscles glinting in the sloping sun,
snow on pale underbellies
offered briefly to fingers,
rough coats dark and uncombed
in colonies of recumbent order
soft in the winter light. 
 
But these silted hollows—
cloaked in poplar and paw paw 
between the restless ridges 
consigned to faux youth 
in their half-height—
tease and pluck at my dislocation.
 
I puzzle this stronghold 
of the Green Man, ancient fool 
untamed by culture, until a switchback 
deposits me on the Potomac plain 
like a raft of last year's leaves. 
 
Glimpsed through trunks, 
the silver river drags its world
as a coal train on the far bank 
creeps upstream. Velocities match, 
vectors cancel. Road, river, and mountain 
pause beside a house 
where somebody felt what I feel 
and said, I could settle here. 

Copyright 2016 S.B. Merrow. From Unpacking the China, QuillsEdge Press.

After 40 years as a flute maker, S. B. Merrow recently returned to her first love, poetry writing.