Symbiosis

by Laura Foley

 
Evelyn and I
climb the hill
in crisp sunrise.
I lift an oak leaf from the ground,
crusted with first frost
she touches like fairy dust,
and pockets to show her dad.
We rest at a picnic spot,
on wooden chairs,
close our eyes in meditation.
Listen, I say, to the sounds
you hear with closed eyes:
fallen leaves crinkling
in autumn’s morning breeze,
blackbirds squawking, unseen,
somewhere in the high pines,
wind shuffling through hemlocks—
and, she asserts, in thin, high
child’s voice, clear and glad
as a cardinal’s trilling,
the chairs, Grandma, listen to the chairs—
and we do, side by side,
with eyes closed,
instructing each other.


* * * * *

"Symbiosis" was previously published in Live Encounters.

Laura Foley is the author of eight poetry collections. Everything We Need: Poems from El Camino was released, in winter 2022. Why I Never Finished My Dissertation received a starred Kirkus Review, was among their top poetry books of 2019, and won an Eric Hoffer Award. Her collection It's This is forthcoming from Fernwood Press. Her poems have won numerous awards, and national recognition—read frequently by Garrison Keillor on The Writers Almanac; appearing in Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry.
 
Laura lives with her wife, Clara Gimenez, among the hills of Vermont. www.laurafoley.net