Maypole

By Katherine Hagopian Berry

Dark dawn, searchlight, 
                                            take the chainsaw and our son
fresh firpine chosen
                                            in the fog air, cut it down
brave, the one tree already
                                            ready, almost, to fall:
flowercrowned, worshiping
                                            rainbow ribbon silky on the spool, 
liquid chrysalis, my task
                                            water, rosemary 
remembering, sea salt, tears, 
                                            in the glass bowl scattering
true patterns
                                            woven in and out like lightwaves
orient suntilt always
                                            orbiting the rottrunk blooming
in the backyard, shy mayflower, lost violet
                                            we wake to find 
drystraw lifecovered,
                                            weeping cherry,
old scars, healing
                                            the green nipplebud opening,
                           a newsprung branch. 

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Katherine Hagopian Berry (she/her) has appeared in the Café Review, Enough: Poems of Resistance and Protest, Balancing Act II: An Anthology of Poetry by Fifty Maine Women, Glass: Poet’s Resist, and Frost Meadow Review. Her first collection of poetry, Mast Year, was published by Littoral Books in March 2020. She has work forthcoming in Strange Fire, Jewish Voices on the Pandemic, and Rise-Up Review, and is a poetry reader for the Maine Review.

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