Lost and found – a poem by Lisa Creech Bledsoe

Lost and found

The weight of the few secrets
I’ve collected has stitched my feet
tonight to the stones in the creek
folded my longing against the mossy logs
who are unmaking themselves into the slush

Night drifts nearer—
a sheet settling over a bed,
her light slanting purple and brown
through the naked branches where
I wait, dusted with snow, shaking
leaning according to the unbalance
in my brain—wait to be
learned or found

Bees as they grow take on new jobs
within the hive; their brain chemistry
changes, too, so I don’t call this a disease
but a teacher, and I wait to empty out
and replenish

The river hasn’t lost me, and won’t—
even the bees clustered against the winter
know their work and can be trusted

But this can’t be said quickly
……..you will be orphaned of all gifts
……..then opened to new ones

.

Watched by crows and friend to salamanders, Lisa Creech Bledsoe is a writer living in the mountains of North Carolina. She has two books, “Appalachian Ground” (2019) and “Wolf Laundry” (2020) out, and new poems in American Writers Review, The Main Street Rag, and Jam & Sand, among others.