Poem as Simple Survival Gear*
That each different conifer keens uniquely and shushes
in breezes.
Speak to me God.
Long, short-needled pine, larch, spruce, fir.
Not on some college campus somewhere but far out in
the wilderness, I stop and just listen
to the song as it soothes flesh and bones of the ear.
This is what you meant to say all along way back in
the beginning.
This is all there is child.
Pay attention.
I have been waiting forever.
*Originally published in pãn |dé | mïk | 2020: An Anthology of Pandemic Poems by OPA Members, winter 2021
_______________________
Nancy Christopherson
Review by Paul Jones
Christopherson, whose poems here have had previous homes, takes us with her to a book reading, Russian churches, and in the last of the set to a more abstract place “Not some college campus somewhere but far out in / the wilderness.” Each location is a place for revelation.