by Jennifer Bullis
Pacific Northwest, 2021
O flame-wearer
o drought-endower hear my distraught prayer
Heat domes the region in June
cooks one billion mollusks alive
July, thimbleberries ripen a full month early
Lassen Klamath Methow suffocate in smoke
Mt. Shasta bare of snow a midsummer rarity
glaciers liquefy into debris flow
Mt. Rainier’s and Mt. Baker’s glaciers rapid-melt
into their rivers silt their estuaries gray
August, huckleberries blackberries wild currants
desiccate on the vine
O Lady Miriam Lady Mary mare mer Mère
remember Your aspect as sea-mother
not only of tears, not only salt-bitter
but basin bringer
of water
lifeblood lifesap plasma
O distillate of ocean
transubstantiate to fresh
save on this Cascade foothill slope
this drought-drooped mother fir
distressed dropping all
her young, green cones at once
::
Jennifer Bullis is the author of Impossible Lessons (MoonPath Press) and of poems and essays appearing in Cave Wall, Gulf Coast, Indiana Review, RHINO Poetry, Terrain.org, and Water~Stone Review. She is an Artsmith Residency Fellow, recipient of honorable mention for the Gulf Coast Prize, and finalist for the Brittingham & Pollak and the Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prizes. She holds a PhD from University of California-Davis and lives in Bellingham, Washington, where she writes about long-distance foot travel, horse-keeping, motherhood, deforestation, and women in the courtroom.
Image: Alek Newton
ID: Snowy mountain in rosegold light.
Psaltery & Lyre 