I trip over roots long buried in grasses,

bones within earth’s mercy. 

Huckleberry grows 

from a crumbling stump

alongside an orange mushroom

whose gills sigh for the ocean.

I almost see, on a weathered bench,

two old carpenters 

discussing dovetails, hinge 

for a granddaughter’s hope chest. 

Cedar is a lasting wood, 

incense of the forest,

refuge for warbler and thrush.

Last spring, a neighbor told me,

she watched a doe give birth here.

A doe-fawn. 

I don’t visit as often as I should.

Hellebores bruise winter 

in this green-white garden 

where a traveler might leave grief 

or borrow seeds

to make them kinder.

I bring a lunch, sometimes a notebook,

simply for the company of cedar.

[Poetry | Issue 12]

Joanne M. Clarkson

Cedar ParK

Joanne M. Clarkson lives in Port Townsend, WA, on the Salish Sea. She has worked as a professional librarian and as a Hospice RN. Poetry has always been her artistic and spiritual practice. “Hospice House,” MoonPath Press, 2023, is her sixth book. Her poems have appeared in journals such as Poetry Northwest, The Schooner, Nimrod and Alaska Quarterly Review. Currently she teaches writing at a farm for rescued and retired horses.