On my walk I notice a hint of yellow
on the arched branches of forsythia
that grow over an old rock wall—
the stones handpicked for fit
not a wink of daylight between them.
The mind can be tricky.
When I woke up this morning,
I forgot for a moment
there was a pandemic
in the way sometimes at first light
I forget that my father is dead.
This wall is a kind of memorial
to a lost world— its stones
formed thousands of years ago.
I walk by it and tell myself
everything will be fine
once the forsythia’s
yellow blossoms crown.
The phrase, “memorial to a lost world,” is attributed to University of Connecticut geology professor, Robert M. Thorson.
Image: “New Forsythia Blossom on a Rainy Morning” by slgckgc, licensed under CC 2.0.
Cindy Veach is the author of "Her Kind" (CavanKerry Press, forthcoming), "Gloved Against Blood" (CavanKerry Press), named a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize and a ‘Must Read’ by The Massachusetts Center for the Book and the chapbook, "Innocents" (Nixes Mate). Her poems have appeared in the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day Series, AGNI, Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore, Michigan Quarterly Review, Diode and elsewhere. She received the 2019 Phillip Booth Poetry Prize and the 2018 Samuel Allen Washington Prize. Cindy is co-poetry editor of Mom Egg Review. www.cindyveach.com