Emily Carr’s Forest, British Columbia, 1931-2, by Karen L. George

Forest, British Columbia, by Emily Carr (Canada). 1931-1932.

Emily Carr’s Forest, British Columbia, 1931-2    
 
I
No sky. Nothing but smothering
succession. Parallel tree trunks
linked parts of a whole, a schema, flow.
Braided tangle of foliage
heavy, creased curtains that block the way
green waves of oceans thrust
a final tsunami to bury the world
 
II
Three-fourths up the crush
a sliver of golden light illumines
what it squeezes between
 
III
No place for a foothold.
A few trunks hold spikes--
remnant of branches--
that will pierce skin
 
IV
Cloy of soil, corroding wood, dense vegetation--
huddling confluences
 
V
What you can’t smell or see, but hear
burrow, rustle, plummet through air
sounds you can’t pinpoint what direction
they come from. Everything echoes
 
VI
Is that you breathing?

Karen L. George

I'm author of the poetry collection Swim Your Way Back (Dos Madres Press, 2014), and five chapbooks, most recently The Fire Circle (Blue Lyra Press, 2016), and an ekphrastic collaborative chapbook Frame and Mount the Sky (Finishing Line Press, 2017). My work has appeared inAdirondack Review, Naugatuck River Review, Louisville Review, Heron Tree, and Sliver of Stone. I review poetry at Poetry Matters:  http://readwritepoetry.blogspot.com/, and am co-founder and fiction editor of the journal, Waypoints:  http://www.waypointsmag.com/. My website is:  http://karenlgeorge.snack.ws/.