In which I carry Lightning on my Back by Katrin Talbot

Up the mountain,
where the rock
bares its secrets
and I breathe in the earth
without a filter,
where stoic is the only name
for the trees who take
what is given to them
every season,
I find the black,
the white,
I carry them
down the mountain,
the story of lightning
in the charred wood,
the wisdom of the
bleached bone
and, after the descent,
I take the wood,
whose centuries-old essence
changed in a flash,
and write on the bone
STRUCK

Australian-born Katrin Talbot’s collection The Waiting Room for the Imperfect Alibis is forthcoming from Kelsay Books and she has seven chapbooks, two Pushcart Prize nominations and quite a few chickens. www.katrintalbot.com