Bearing It, by Shanna Powlus Wheeler

Haystacks, by Steve Getz (USA) contemporary

Bearing It

Bear with me, reader, like these sparkling mounds of rock 
withstanding the rush of water for who knows
how many millennia:
 
Just days ago, my family strolled the length of a swinging bridge,
a rust-red marvel strung across the Androscoggin,
not in the Pennsylvania wilds, but in coastal Maine,
and as the cables bore our weight with a rocking sway, 
we watched the rapids rage over glittering boulders.
 
It was then that this scene of the Loyalsock came to mind:
heaping layers of quartz-rich rock (like haystacks, yes) 
that once bore the futile blasts of dynamite 
by frustrated loggers.
 
Rugged shores line both bodies of water,
and the rods of anglers here and there
bear the writhing fight of small-mouth bass.
 
From that bridge, I saw a rock ever-surface like a whale,
dividing the water into white-capped currents,
while in this blue-green rendering
(yes, artist, I see it) a tawny sea turtle 
bears the torrent of waterfalls on every side.
 
Both waterways seek the sea, roiling on their way,
one bearing resemblance to the other
and mingling in my mind. 
 
I gladly bear the confusion
like a body of brackish water surging over, 
searching through the luminous rocks.

Shanna Powlus Wheeler

A previous contributor to The Ekphrastic Review, Shanna Powlus Wheeler has published two books of poetry, Lo & Behold and Evensong for Shadows. Her work appears in Keystone Poetry: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania, an anthology recently published by Penn State University Press. She teaches writing courses at Pennsylvania College of Technology and lives with her husband and children near Williamsport, PA.