The Yawning Deep Early Spring / Peter Helland Wildlife Area, WI

by Keith Phelps

The country washed in ochre,
sculpted by smoke plume.

Redwing trill. Gray dogwood, inundated marsh.
Geese fly letters. On the ridge,

oaks rattle their dead rusted
Leaves, waiting to break buds
Wide, wide open.

Everything churns, stretches:
the lifetime of songbirds, mud nests
or black calves lowing.

Spilling fuel, we birth fire
weaving flame to clear barrens
for pasque flower, puccoon, bushclover.

Flames cinder to sweetened smoke,
leaving aster and little bluestem
stalks to shred in the wind.

Locals sift for discarded pearls
of bronzed antlers on the ash bed.

Life becomes pourable.
What is stone under the blushing

morning, by dusk is cracking,
Molting, and oozing everywhere.

Keith Phelps (he/his) is a poet and environmental consultant who lives in Appleton, WI. He holds a B.A. in Environmental Studies and History from UW-Madison and an M.S. in Forest Resources from Clemson University. Through art, Keith is primarily interested in exploring the tethers between humanness and nonhumanness, our journeys in loss and birth, and the preservation of the past and future.