The Fall of the Nature Poet

and when her toddler

lost his fingers in the

shells, when the plumes

arose like fungi—

in the grass, mushrooms

dotted about the forest floor,

their white intoxication—

made him drunk again,

it took 13 stitches to dam

her river wound. She says that

she will leave him when—

the orange leaf

inferno comes again, October’s

jutting limbs which say—

anorexia's a bitch, the doctor

sighs, my jingle-

jangle bones upon each step—

along the path, the spin

of deciduous seed, samaras

in the field guide, though

we called them helicopters, 

whirling from the air as—

the sky had dropped its locusts,

it was napalm that was next,

watch the children burning 

while they flee the sun-smacked

fields

once threshed, the earth is

something lost; my rusted,

forlorn sickle

hanging from the shed,

flaking in the snow.

I will write of flowers

come the Spring

This Winter never ends:

I cannot feel my fingers

the fingers, the fingers

Andreas Gripp

September 27, 2025

Sherree Valentine-Daines