Lawn Chairs
The marine weather radio
reports visibility in percentages.
To hear this from shore means little,
but on the water in the fog
(even with GPS) a truth is revealed:
you are not where you thought you were.
There can be a sense of disorientation
proven through daily squandry until
something out of the ordinary—
good or bad, like the breathless call of an osprey
or the chimes of glass across the floor—slow or stun us.
Sun and rain coinciding. April showers in August.
Wind so strong, lawn chairs fly at a pace of seasons.
The worst days have passed, low points have risen.
Tomorrow a new day will drift across the water,
land visible, even measurable, for a pulse.
Bring the weather home any way you can.
Dry it above the woodstove. Store it in the root cellar.
Gather strength within, along with troubled weeds
whose rich history makes us feel welcome.
Tuck it all under your pillow. Wish us brave.
Find worth and good in the roots of you.
We are not living to achieve great things.
Wild Blueberries
A trail through the Andorra Forest
where low bush wild blueberries grow,
squirrels dart glistening granite,
ants uphold a sequence of meals.
Dear Swainson’s thrush, Blackpoll warbler,
twigs, strand of moss, knit me back—
Monadnock, Sunapee, scent of swift and far love
familiar as red oak, birch, maple.
I go higher up a ladder to a lookout tower.
Clouds gather, summit for allegiance in the dying wind.
I climb to understand old and forever.
Simple, simple, simple. Ask me to return.
No distant fires, just stillness before a summer rain.
Sarah Platenius, American Canadian, is a visual artist and writer based on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Her work has appeared in Orion, North American Review, The Hopper, Camas, and elsewhere.
Header image, The Breathing Field, by Sarah Platenius.
