~ Delta Poetry Review ~

Robert Brickhouse

Up Laurel Run

In the thickets above the rock cliffs

side rills cross the ridge trail, requiring

careful steps over the tussock sedges and stones.

It’s so quiet except for the distant

splash of the stream, the occasional birdsong.

We used to hike through here with our friend

to see the laurel and azalea,

the spring flowers under the tall oaks and hickories.

Unfold ourselves a bit in rambling talk.

A wildfire two years ago scorched the trees,

blackened the understory. That winter

the damp earth smelled of acrid char and ash.

Today we find irises and wild geraniums,

the mountainside slowly coming back.

Banks of laurel bloom across the creek.

If she were with us now, I’d want to ask her,

do our fellow creatures exult in

the freshness of the day?

Are they also a little anxious? Like us.

She’d always raise a hand

when she heard the call of a wood thrush.

Robert Brickhouse has contributed poems and stories to many magazines and journals, including Virginia Quarterly Review, Southern Poetry Review, American Journal of Poetry, Poet Lore, Louisiana Literature, Texas Review, Hollins Critic, Chattahoochee Review, Atlanta Review, and Pleiades. Now retired, he worked as a reporter for Virginia newspapers and as a writer and editor for publications at the University of Virginia.