A Lover to Winter, and: Sarvis Trees, Easter Morning

A Lover to Winter Sun rises pearl mother And I wake on snowcold banks laid in ice impressed by a dream. Outside barbed wire chitters the side-flowing rays of shine. Friendship needles green frostpicks glitter. And I read your face like snow disguised by wind and drift in tracks already pastTake off your mask. Let water-rock bloom rings, hot stones sharp breath. I want to I want your touch your lips, eyes to melt. Poems by Ellesa Clay High y\*. Sarvis Trees, Easter Morning This morning, sarvis trees rise up on ridgesides, resurrections in white whisperfog to flower, signs like snow, mountains breathing in the sun. I see these ridges, strung against the sky like the rosaries of God and ask: Who counts your silver now? Who draws lots as you are stripped? and who, connivers in a potter's field, dump hazards on your land? Oh, West Virginia, to watch you rising through this early April light, is to know why, some nights, the Cheat, and Gauley, and Blackwater rivers burst their banks and roll great stones away, why trucks with high-level waste screech alleluia as they wind through town, and why the sarvis, delicately pure about you, hover like souls not quite ready to depart. 87 88 ...