Spring 2020

Spring 2020 Roots

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A poem by Eleanor Wilner

For the lone pine to bless

with a shower of needles, red in the dawn,
the stream by its side, riverflow
idling, a little back spill, the shrill
cry of a bird, and little by little,
as the light grew, the sun crested
the hills, and, as it splintered its gold
among our leaves- a two-legged figure
appeared, and behind it, another,
another--as if the horizon itself was
an opening seam from which they were
pouring, a column stretching back and back,
over the hills that the sun had just
mounted. They were backlit
by that sun, flat silhouettes,
and it was hard to discern one
from another, so alike they appeared,
and so endless their procession.
And as they approached us, we
tensed, feeling something between
apprehension and wonder, so much like
an army of ants they seemed--so many,
so many ... as they came closer, we heard
a great keening, so that, unsure
how to greet them, aware
they brought with them a great loss,
we offered them what we
could: shade, a cool shelter from
the heat that had begun to follow
the sun, a soft bed of needles
from the pine to sleep on, and
as we caught and played the breeze
in our leaves, we sang to them,
our thoughts moving in the slipstream
of time's passage, wind in the harps
hung in our branches, left there
in despair by others so like them
years ago, slow circles of years
we can barely remember; still
the song of the wind in the harp strings
has mingled and merged
with our tendrils of thought, a singing
we offer them now, this sorrowing
multitude, who, in return, bring
their tears to water our roots.

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Tyler Meier - Poet and director of the University of Arizona Poetry Center

Karla Elling - Artist of the broadside