✨ Skywoman, the trees, and fire

and braids gratitude...

Skywoman, the trees, and fire

What the fire hears, red, willow and aster:
Fire, too, whispers, “I hear, I hear,”

and all the woods shiver, ravel,
unravel. A few survive.

Skywoman considers: Being, unbeing,
to the place where the day begins.

The voice is heard, over hands,
over asters, wanting or not wanting.

She longs to hear the whispers of fire,
what the willow hears: the foretelling,

how the mother, braiding sweetgrass,
hand over hand, weaves her story

day into night, the sound of silver bells,
silvery trill on the still-bare branches

shivers the air, draws her to the place
where the day begins, settles in her mind.

She asks if gratitude, too, is a citizen,
and braids gratitude in the hem of her skirt.

Gratitude becomes a story of wanting,
a wanting of story, and she feels the whispers

like sugar and bells. She braids sweetgrass
around her heart, soothed by songs.

Wanting the woods, she follows the sound
of searching, hand over hand.

—Glynn Young

✨ Read more found poems in How to Write a Form Poem…

From How to Write a Form Poem: A Guided Tour of 10 Fabulous Forms,

T. S. Poetry Press

, Copyright © 2021. Used by permission of T. S. Poetry Press. Photo by Simon Wilkes, Creative Commons, via Unsplash.