by Jack B. Bedell
—Manchac, after Frank Relle’s photograph, “Alhambra”
1.
Backlit by city and refinery’s glow
these cypress bones shimmer
on the still lake’s surface.
It’s easy to see a storm’s
coming with the sky rolling
gray overhead and the water
glass-calm. Even easier to know
these trees have weathered
some rough winds, their branches
here and there, pointing this
a-way and that at what
we’ve done to this place.
Their trunks gather here
like hoary, Old Testament prophets
come down from the mountain
to rest in this body dump,
gold light hitting the moss
all Luminol-shine and whisper.
2.
Water’s the only thing
that gets in here easily, pushed
in by storms or poured
through spillway gates.
Years of its salt has loosened
the coast line’s faith, turned
forest to roots and sawgrass,
constant loss. This water
rises, seeps, leaves doubt
everywhere dirt should be.
It’s not worth lying down
in the hull of your boat
to scrape under the rail trellis
if you’re only coming here
to see what used to be. Do it
so you can hear the ghost forest
sing about what’s coming next
after the water’s had its way.
3.
What is moss if it isn’t
memory? It hangs off these branches,
sways on the breeze like Merton’s
prayers, the closest these trees
will get to needles again. Everything else
here is dead still, waiting for the storm
to blow in. No frog bellow,
no heron flap—just moss
waving and the water’s slow rise
to prove this place breathes.
Stillness is faith, locust’s whine
benediction here, and this moss
knows all there is to know
about holding on, and air,
and how fully empty time is
with all this water aching
to fill it. Trunks. Branches.
Sky bruising into storm.
JACK B. BEDELL is Professor of English and Coordinator of Creative Writing at Southeastern Louisiana University where he also edits Louisiana Literature and directs the Louisiana Literature Press. Jack’s work has appeared in Southern Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Pidgeonholes, The Shore, Cotton Xenomorph, Okay Donkey, EcoTheo, The Hopper, Terrain, Kissing Dynamite, and other journals. His latest collection is No Brother, This Storm (Mercer University Press, 2018). He served as Louisiana Poet Laureate 2017-2019.
Photo: “Alhambra” by Frank Relle (used with permission)
Psaltery & Lyre 