Found Art – a poem by Jane Simpson

Found Art

A woman extends her arm
to better see the contents
of her hand: long-stalked
dog fennel, calico aster.

She adds wing stem,
bluestem, wool grass;
sticks them in a lidless
screw-neck jar she 

finds slightly buried.
She sees design
in these woods—
a medicine-bottle

of rainwater elixir,
a pewter button 
near twigs and straws 
of a beaver’s dam.

She gently plies apart 
the growth that binds 
glass and metal,
pockets the finds.

She knows the goods
come with stories
but it’s the foliage 
stems she studies—

their browns variegated 
as wood rot,
grays: soft and furred
rodent bellies.

She’s drawn to the winter 
flora that thrives 
in form, in absence
of color, despite fine

names, tatted flowers,
their spillage of fronds
lighter than dust motes
in filtered light.

Jane Simpson was named Georgia Author of the Year for her chapbook, On the Porch, Under the Eave (FutureCycle Press 2017). Her full-length book, Blessings of the Beasts, (FutureCycle Press 2018) chronicles the eight years she worked for President Jimmy Carter, including four years on the White House staff. Her third book, Psalm Sonnets (FutureCycle Press 2021), is a collection of loosely-formed sonnets and are sacred and secular thoughts prompted by the Psalms. She lives in Atlanta and Ellijay, Georgia.