Circle in the Grass — Blackbird Archive

← v13n1, Spring 2014

As a branch is bent, the years

I still have a lot of flashes

Once there was

A tree here, two-story oak

Now, just a circle in the grass

That will not regrow

A battle is indescribable, but once

Seen it haunts a man

Until the day of his death—

Here, there used to be

Footprints Clothing

Today, the hundredth

Anniversary

Delicate flakes—

Blossoms—

Here, there used to be

To sleep, I lay down

As a branch is bent, the years

With murderers

war memory violence nature

Ailish Hopper

Ailish Hopper is the author of the forthcoming Dark~Sky Society (New Issues, 2014), selected by David St. John as runner-up for the New Issues Poetry Prize, and a chapbook, Bird in the Head (Center for Book Arts, 2005), selected by Jean Valentine as the winner of the Center for Book Arts Poetry Chapbook Competition. Her poetry has appeared in AGNI , American Poetry Review , Ploughshares , and Poetry . She has received fellowships and residencies from the MacDowell Colony, Vermont Studio Center, and Yaddo. She teaches at Goucher College in Baltimore. Photo by Ailish Hopper