Into the Empty Hours
Outside, the spring grasses
rise up in tiny blades
yet I do the cutting.
I walk and walk, back
and forth behind the mower
with its front wheel drive
that pulls me like a wave.
The alder snags sticks
in my hair and the dying red
pine its brown needles.
They both need to be cut—
cut back, cut down. If a tree
can be a friend, then these
keep their counsel. One
tugs off my hat, the other
spreads death onto my shoulders.
What have I made of my life
except this loneliness?
*
Subhaga Crystal Bacon (they/them) is a poet from rural northcentral WA. Their poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Terrain, Alaska Women Speak, Collateral, Action/Spectacle, and Mom Egg Review. Subhaga is the author of Transitory, BOA Editions, and A Brief History of My Sex Life, forthcoming from Lily Poetry Review Books.
Beautiful, moving.
Ooooh. The quiet narration of a familiar, solitary activity, beautiful understated description, the mower “that pulls me like a wave,” then the turn….”if a tree can be a friend…,” the stunning last line. This is my kind of poem.