Poem: The Isle

The sun sets, and dusk shines best only in the spot

where I sit with my back against the alpine tree,

and you can see the marks and crevices

where Norse gods hid voracious secrets before absconding.

Days spent mostly among the ferns and traipsing through the brush,

watching the sun rise and set in the moors,

or picking tiny leaves off the rue.

I can count the dozens of kinds of orchids,

and my younger sister can catch salmon and trout

with her bare hands. She tells me winter will be

especially agitated this year, bitter. That it will drive us

all away. I don’t believe her because

even the most unyielding stags return in the spring

to gnaw on the lichen and the brush, fawns following

in a languid route behind them.