Semi-Permafrost
The redwoods awake ;
laughing at us -- some ancient
gossip passes
through the roots, all the way to the
superbugs asleep in the permafrost
We wait, -- pulling
ourselves to bits while the trunks
of trees that have stretched wide for
Millenia
sing their own laughter songs
to one another :: reckless species
reckless sons and daughters
that have let the Amazon burn;
that have let Australia burn
that have let the poles slink back;
tucking their white socks in to their shoes
Still prepossessed
with the self-obsessed
with the richness of time and space
that bends and contours around the
liminal trace of our skin - the shape of
our bones reaching out of our cheeks
The way our skulls will look
as they swelter in the coming heat;
the way they will
Peel away from our foundation,
our blush, as the mascara
squeals its way off our lashes
and the heat pulls the ancient
stories once buried in ice - now carried
on the wind
The permafrost now only semi-permafrost
and us, only semi-permanent as well
And the redwoods still laugh,
careen towards the endless wisdom
of being rooted deeper than the wind can shake
Historic courthouse, centreville, maryland
Hollowed out firmament of Justice; bricks painted white , stacked by hands whose ash now
billows about the roots of these structures : these structures that never deteriorate , the perfect
lilies placed around a statue of Queen Anne ; the endless monarchy and oligarchy of something
we come to pray to :: the precipice of judgement whose hand sits in gavels long-since hammered
away ; hammering away sentences, not paragraphs — just sound bites, not full context — just
pieces of pieces of lives lost; and laws held and upheld like a handful of marbles jangling, with
all the light that passes through them, and all the air that sits at the edge of the spherical shape;;
the way we hold on to history like a sack full of old coins that no longer hold any value — but
the sound of the jangle pleases our ear so; the clink of old metal and salvaged chunks of wrought
iron that once brought the iron fist to some wishless land;; the wish-list landed on this lapping
shoreland; this Plymouth Rock-edged cliff; the sound of the jangle observes us observing it; and
continues to sing
Lauren Suchenski has a difficult relationship with punctuation and currently lives in Yardley, PA. She has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize, three times for The Best of the Net and her chapbook “Full of Ears and Eyes Am I” is available from Finishing Line Press.
Follow Lauren on Instagram @lauren_suchenski and on Twitter @laurensuchenski.