(Inspired by “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” Robert Frost)

Write it out in airy letters,
breathy pauses where birth
is just a push, the flower
a catastrophe in the making,

Last night the moon looked full
out a window I didn’t expect.
Did the moon lose its way
for a minute, for the time
in my middle-of-the-night waking
to such a surprise, when all
I expected were stars? Our lives
are already written in broad strokes,
even we think we know the path,
with the horizons never shifting,
as directed as the moon’s trajectory.

Each first cry leads to a last mumble,
a lifetime in between. Flowers are not fruit,
but beautiful promises for the hungry,
because harvest curves the belly round,
the pumpkin in the field,
the peaches heavy on branches.

The grief of Eden was not in leaving,
our lines already written, part of the cycle
when words mark our loss of innocence.
Once blind, picking scabs after we fell,
we found the path to the crystal clear running brook.
As our flower fades from memory,
the fruit could be luscious peaches,
or those left wind-scattered on the ground.

Michelle Holland’s poems can be found in literary journals, in print, online, and anthologized, most recently in the 2023 New Mexico Anthology of Poetry, UNM Press. She has two book-length collections of poetry, Chaos Theory, Sin Fronteras Press, and The Sound a Rven Makes, Tres Chicas Press. Michelle Holland PO Box 1016 Chimayo, NM 87522 michholland2@gmail.com 505-660-0877