Where I grew up, and still live for part of the year. It’s located near Tyrone, Pennsylvania in the valley and ridge province of the Appalachians. Plummer’s Hollow Run drains into the Little Juniata, part of the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
spicebush fills
the opening the big birch left
that allspice scent
“heteromorphic
self-incompatibility”
partridgeberry’s red pills
END OF PUBLIC ACCESS
sun shining right through
the plastic sign
where the road crosses the creek
a crayfish
walking upstream
not knowing
what’s around the next bend
five-year-old me
the headless hunter’s
lantern on moonless nights
in her quavery voice
more frightening
than our neighbor’s ghost stories
those wooden legs
I still look for her house
but there’s just the red privy
its vacant hole
old corral
two years for horses
47 for trees
too red
half the maple’s leaves
are poison ivy
unchanged
for 180 million autumns
cinnamon ferns
fraying scrolls
illuminated with blue fungi
black birch log
one katydid
this late in the season
texting my wife
migrant flycatcher
swiping its beak back and forth
on a bare branch
a plastic toy football
unearthed by the summer floods
all the stream’s voices
rain-softened ground
even the gravel road
has a bit of give
spring house
still keeping the milk-
snakes cool
the view from my childhood
bedroom window
I live in it now
that walnut sprout
we tried to kill with a frisbee
eating in its shade
cattails
overwhelmed by tearthumb
the purpose-driven life
ghostly dock leaves
pressed against the window
old chicken house
gone but for their grins
our childhood collection
of mummified rats
once my best
climbing teacher
broken-limbed maple
stone wall
all the times
I’ve rebuilt it
where we fought many
a rotten tomato battle
common snakeroot
lawn and gardens gone
back to meadow
the buildings’ straight lines
no more turning
even the electric meter
is digital now
barn that once
housed an elephant
its great grey-green roof
tree branches grow
no lower than deer can reach
woods’ edge
rock piles
from the 19th century
the oak’s massive crown
right-of-way
the power pole all scratched up
by bears
hayscented fern
losing ground to goldenrod
a circling monarch
touch-me-not
the invasive stiltgrass stops
just short of it
glasswort
jumpseed
enchanter’s nightshade
a distant rooster
that gurgle we dug
this pit to reach as kids
it’s still down there
wingstem
at the old dump site
the bumblebee’s long tongue
off-trail in the woods
in spiderweb season
walking mindfully
a loop of grapevine
rising from the horsebalm patch
the scent of lemons
fall warbler
I pish as if fluent
in bird mysteries
all its offspring
on the other side of the deer fence
the big pine