The following poem appears in our Spring/Summer 2018 issue. Purchase this issue in print or digital format to read the rest of Christopher’s poem and more.
The man raised hard-packed earth in a patch around his ankles
Clearing knotted ivy-root with a dull pick-axe
That something yet unborn to him may take root and grow
An unruly hedge that rained juniper’s blue-flame berries once
On the heads of his long-ago boys, he trimmed
Back that morning to three trunks, austere and slender as saplings
He worked a symmetry adhering to some unspoken rule of gardeners
When he unearthed a wonder: a sphere, curiously light,
Of stone he imagined might contain a geode
—
C.W. BUCKLEY lives and works in Seattle with his family. Corporate by day, Catholic by faith, he’s a fourth generation West Coast native whose writing explores geek culture, conscience, faith, and fatherhood. Reading regularly at Easy Speak Seattle in the city’s northeast, his work is forthcoming in Rock & Sling, and has appeared in Lummox Journal, Poesy Magazine, and the Bay Area Poets Coalition Anthology. You can follow him as @chris_buckley on Twitter.
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