Forgotten Ground Regained

Serenity Falls Up

On the way there a pair of startled wings clattered up – that was all.
(From Tomas Tranströmer’s A Place in the Forest)
A frond stretches fingersthrough the ivy's twine,
grasping at a black-throated finch pecking at a puddle
in the cusp of a waxy leaf yellowing under the edge of the empty deck
Umber rails, laced by termitetunnels, might one daycrumble.
The leaf, much sooner,will dissolve the webbingbetween its veins
to clutch at the earth,to burrow, to build –
the finch chirpsthen falls up.
Copyright © Matthew Bullen, 2024 First Published in Forgotten Ground Regained, New Series, Issue 5, Winter, 2025
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