Clover – a poem by Psyche North Torok

Clover
 
I want to bring so much
to the place that I call sacred,
rocks from the river and tumbled stone,
woodruff and pine needles,
grain and fruit for my offerings.
I want to bring sweet red clover                                         
to please you,
just as you said it would
but I can find none in the city now.
Maybe in the spring when the close wind
palliates as best it can                                                         .
this cruelty of metal, tar and 
concrete, I'll go out in the moonlight
and find it, rebellious beside the freeway,                                    
defiant in the cracks of sidewalk,
or quartered like an outlaw in the                                      
metropark. Perhaps then 
I can give us our own refuge
in the solitary country,
where with any luck at all
the city will forsake us.                                                                                
There I will make you an altar that
no one can violate, an altar of sweet red clover,
an altar of stone.

A graduate of Ohio State University, Psyche North Torok is a lover of words, language, and nature. She often visits the Olentangy River and has been known to leave offerings at its banks. Her poems have appeared in Common Ground Review, Plainsongs, Avalon Literary Review,and various anthologies including Forgotten Women and Dead of Winter.