To A Certain Stretch of Forgotten Pasture
The grove of mixed oaks inches slowly closer
to one another, even over the hungry years,
nature’s reminder that even atrophy
has its narrow place, makes a bed
rich with potential. Underneath, decay-
ing:
the leaves,
a fertile
some
thing.
It looms.
It loams.
It loads the soil with what the trees need,
their canopies fruiting over and over.
36 thoughts on "To A Certain Stretch of Forgotten Pasture"
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I’m really appreciating you nature writing. You have a talent for it the genre. Really enjoying here the movement through the landscape which takes the unique turn of not being anthropomorphized horizontal movement of a human along a plane, but moves vertically as a science. For example the moving beneath in the middle. Then to conclude, I love too the looms, loams, loads move there at the end.
Thanks, Jon. I have a lack of it in my life so I definitely write to get back home in a way. It’s also so distant from me–which can help.
I like your ode to forgotten pasture—naturally only a poet sees beyond what is there unnoticed. Also like rhythm of last stanza—it looms, it loams….
Thank you, Kim! I’ve been so obsessed with small unloved nature this month. Worms and dirt!
proof you’re putting in the time to really see 🙂
nice work.
Thanks, Dustin! 💛
very nice
everything
the shape form sound
Thanks, Jim. I appreciate that! I really want to learn more about form.
I like the first sentence a lot!
Thank you, Jerielle!
“It looms / it loams / it loads.” This is so lovely! Awesome poem!
Thanks, Dennis!
This is very nice! Like Dennis said, the ending is incredible.
Thank you, Nancy!
Love:
It looms.
It loams.
It loads the soil with what the trees need,
their canopies fruiting over and over.
Truly beautiful.
Thanks so much, Pam.
My choice, too, for favorite part of this poem! So lyrical!
Thanks, Gregory!
I love “bed rich with potential” and using fruiting as a verb.
Thanks, Austen! 💛
such unexpected line breaks. well done!
Thank you Eric!
Great work in this poem!
Thank you, Linda!
Delicious poem, Shaun. One of your smartest and best.
Thank you so much, Kevin. 💛
Love the oaks, and your embrace of nature. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks, Allen. I can’t get away from an oak tree honestly. 😅
I love how the form leads us into the ” Certain Stretch of Forgotten Pasture,” as we feel the lush decay beneath our feet and look up to see the canopies. “Canopies fruiting over and over” is beautiful.
Thank you, Virginia. I appreciate your careful reading!
Can hear this poem most resolutely.
The trees are positively present and I might need to take an allergy med for those fallen leaves.
Incredible as always.
Thank you, Tabitha!! 💛
I’m a sucker for a great title, and I love that you pay poetic tribute to that forgotten area of the world! Beautiful how the form of your poem dives down below the surface, both into the earth and into the depths of the poem. I certainly hope that these poems are building a book I can put on my shelf!
Thank you, Sylvia, for the kind words of encouragement. Maybe one day, a big dream, and you all will be among the first to know!!
I like the message & the structure of this poem–& the lovely sounds: “It looms,” “it loams,” “it loads.”
Thank you, Taunja!