The Hollow (44)

This entry is part 44 of 48 in the series The Hollow

 

tall hemlock
nearly dead from adelgids

unfeathered

 

every year more rain

railroad noise burrows
into the ferns

 

that ice avalanche

my brother’s mark on a tree
lost to moss

 

two faces
on the side of a beech

one has no mouth

The Hollow (43)

This entry is part 43 of 48 in the series The Hollow

 

200 years old
or ten thousand

former road/streambed

 

rhododendron trunk

bare as high as a starving deer’s
neck can stretch

 

elevation measured
by the number of unripe
spikenard berries

 

slow-creeping slope

all the tree boles curved
to keep their balance

The Hollow (42)

This entry is part 42 of 48 in the series The Hollow

 

whispering against
the road from both sides

endless water

 

backhoe toothmarks

our complicated relationship
with the mountain

 

gabion wall

the quarried stones softening
with moss at last

 

a beech log’s pale skin
beginning to rupture

that rich ferment

The Hollow (41)

This entry is part 41 of 48 in the series The Hollow

 

38 years old

the one-acre blowdown
is all grown up

 

how big was that wind

twin basswood trunks
still stretch wide

 

one beech limb
has grown back into the tree

the storm was too much

 

they heard the wind
a half mile away

the hollow’s own howl

The Hollow (39)

This entry is part 39 of 48 in the series The Hollow

 

standing
among the fallen

tuliptrees

 

“common though not abundant”
Liriodendron
tulipifera

 

massive trunks

the mechanics of rising sap
still a mystery

 

riffle-patterned bark

enough stillness
for algae

The Hollow (38)

This entry is part 38 of 48 in the series The Hollow

 

fallen cucumbertree

the white undersides
of its leaves

 

roots lost their grip
on the saturated slope

seed pods still clenched

 

leaf duff undotted
by any black cherries

rained out

 

that mob of red trilliums
melted away

foam in the stream

The Hollow (36)

This entry is part 36 of 48 in the series The Hollow

 

sandstone shelf

all the volumes I ever
wanted to read

 

road-bank hemlock

the orifice at its base
stuffed with stone

 

rockface

the separate neighborhoods
of moss and lichen

 

crumbling bedrock

since it was last sand
the sea too has moved

The Hollow (35)

This entry is part 35 of 48 in the series The Hollow

 

after failing
this year to blossom

Clintonia leaves

 

seedhead

the two sterile florets’
showy bracts

 

the mountain road’s
one straight stretch

turning to look back

 

headwater stream
a dark and slender
mink’s road

The Hollow (34)

This entry is part 34 of 48 in the series The Hollow

 

25 years
since the snow that brought it down
measured in moss

 

after the chainsaw
the silence
big as ever

 

windthrow
ice storm
blizzard

where are the canopy gaps of yesteryear

 

one small bird
to salvage all those logs

winter wren song

The Hollow (33)

This entry is part 33 of 48 in the series The Hollow

 

elderly beech

bark gathered in folds as if
it doesn’t fit right

 

zigzag scar
in a hemlock trunk

its sealed lips

 

graceful
the arc of a tree’s
mid-life crisis

 

the vanishing distance
between their two positions

oakhemlock