~ Delta Poetry Review ~

Carson Colenbaugh

In the Keowee Heights

Clemson Experimental Forest, Clemson, SC

The loblolly pines are spaced evenly in these woods; soft human

Hands planted hundreds and gave structure to the deep gulches.

I walk through the understory in long pants to protect from briars

And logs; trained eyes spot wrought evidence tucked in trunks:

The expansion of wood over time engulfs spools of barbed wire,

Signposts, fences, and shatters the thick plates of ledger stones.

The nature of things devours itself slowly—thin layers of topsoil

Pile on and on erasing footprints, linkages, songs no longer sung.

Just a century ago this land was overrun by farmers: bare rivulets

Devolving into gashes, chiseled into the clay corpses of gullies.

Before that, a prominence of cotton rows, wooden shacks behind

The plantation house, “one of the premier homes in the region.”

And earlier still, hunting grounds shared between local villages;

Dig deep enough to find the living tatters of pelts, chains, names.

 A Grave of Hemlocks

University Cemetery, Sewanee, Tennessee

“Glory to God for the dappled things”—

The supine epitaphs fill with needles, wrought evergreen scales,

And are brazed with mats of loose soil, lichen and black algae.

Four great hemlocks erupt from the damp ground: giant corpses

Still glowing among the living with open eyes and artificial skin,

Roots treated with preservatives, cared for in order to prevent

Infestation by flanking attacks from armies of woolly adelgids.

Their kin across the Cumberland plateau fall into damp loam

And are overtaken by the strangling roots of Eastern white pines.

All day long above the headstones, squirrels gnaw at the fresh

Green cones; they fall, lay unresponsive, and they will not grow.

 Learning Lashes

Clemson, SC

Between the fringetree and the massive oak, a spider’s thin line

Hangs, pulled down by the weight of atoms, fleas, empty air.

It has wrapped its way around two pine needles: blown, fallen,

Drifted into these silver threads which bind the world together.

I am reminded, then, of lashings and twine: learning to tie proper

Hitches in the George Skelton room of the Methodist church.

It is colder out today, the firewood all dry, so I hang my billy pot

Above the fire as the wind blows softly, the dead leaves gasp.

Loop the rope around the spit, pass the end through; wrap around

The standing line, tighten and adjust: make dark tea by the lake.

With a two-half hitch I remember his photo, his thin plaid shirt

And glasses—on the wall, framed, hazy, his gentle fear of God.