Heartwood

Photo by Erda Estremera on Unsplash

It’s been busy ’round these parts, which makes my life no different than everyone else in my world. Still, I’m not without some agency in all this craziness. This poem contemplates how “slow” also, sometimes, means “open.”

Heartwood

Beetles discover the heartwood,
something I’m trying to do
every day; maybe
I will stumble upon
an unnoticed place
deep under the bark; maybe
I will learn to find
that dark-quiet, too.

The clam that
backs into a rocky crevice
will open its shell
and take in the ocean; maybe
I will learn to filter
what I need
from what should be
left behind.

– Steve Peterson

 

 

Published by

Steve Peterson

I teach fifth grade in Iowa.

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