Erosion
Poems
- Complete Poetry Publication List
- The oldest lobster fisher in the world says she might as well keep doing it
- A Reckoning With Johnny Appleseed
- The sparrows (Once again, I was wrong)
- For the grandmother teaching the children how to plant seeds in the community garden
- Substitutions for Buttermilk
- Make Believe
- For the students
- An Answer
- The scientist and the poet
- A 10-year old boy finds a stick on a field trip to the beach
- Clutch
- Erosion
- Piano lessons
- On the Impermanence of Tools
- The Photographer
- A Deeper Pretending
- After days of deep grief
- The News
- How I Wanted to be Beautiful
- Gathering stones
- Writing on Mother’s Day
- Learning to Fish
- Every day something new
- Insights from Arthropods
- Defensible Space
- Turtles at the Convention Center
- Spring Hatch
- On the evolution of shadows
Erosion
Edges fall first,
silt grains cemented
under thousands of years
sloughed away by wind, rain,
footstep of dog,
sandstone alchemized beneath
weight of mountain
turns sand again
Subtle rubbing of days shapens us anew,
weathering, the
slowest song of change
No wonder we wake up some days
wondering at who we used to be.
No wonder we don’t always notice
as our outer edges strip away.
No wonder the children build castles
made of sand at water’s edge,
even though the castles fall.
They are practicing for
when they too will feel
what once seemed enduring
slip inside the rising tide.
—
Originally published in What We Were Born For.
©2024 EMILIE LYGREN
