M a r y B u c h i n g e r
stranger
I love the forest of you,
how dark it is and bewildering.
In you, wolves and mushrooms,
spiders, moss, trillium, scat,
branches to climb and to break
into kindling—the danger of you
is me searching. Storm and sweep
the long-needled pine, bow low
to my fireweed, open into a silver
glade where a woman can suffer
the respect of tall inhabited grasses,
the nods of turning nomad leaves.
copyright 2014 by Mary Buchinger
guest editor: Sara Biggs Chaney
Afterword