When Oak Leaves Shimmy in The Heath – a poem by Kathryn Weld

When Oak Leaves Shimmy in The Heath



I can’t forget the few
               confused green
               sprouts that brighten 
naked blueberry twigs – nor,

embodied by claret oak leaves 
               pinned to branchlets – 
               the body. Each suspended 
hand is brittle, erect 

and slick as tanned hide
               greased by sun.
               I see multitudes waving
to be noticed. I see

the starkness of drought.
               As each palm sways 
               with skeletal abandon, 
I think I see spirit –

or just wind – release,
               as if to counter 
               porosity of bone, 
stiffening flesh.
 
I don’t forget the frailty 
               of bodies, mine, yours –
               too soon to join  
beneficent ghosts passing

silently through houses, wafting 
               over gardens 
               or waiting, abashed, 
with the blueberries, for their turn.
 

Kathryn Weld’s full-length debut Afterimage, is forthcoming from Pine Row Press (Fall 23). Her poetry and prose appear in American Book Review, The Bellevue Literary Review, The Cortlandt Review; Midwest Quarterly, The Southeast Review, Stone Canoe, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and elsewhere. Her chapbook is Waking Light (Kattywompus Press 2019). She is Professor of Mathematics at Manhattan College.