Sunday Stanzas: Messages to the Forest

branch, crusade

Welcome back to another edition of Sunday Stanzas, our collaborative community poetry ritual where y’all share random words and I use your word prompt set to create a singular poem.

This weekend’s words are: branch and crusade. I have highlighted them as they appear in the poem for ease of following.

\\ I write letters on fallen leaves
etched in mud and charcoal,
the ink of earth 

I tuck them away in the hollow 
of the chestnut and the oak,
in the place where the rock meets the dampened moss

I perch atop a fallen branch, 
wait to see which messengers shall come forth
to retrieve my poor ponderings and naively conceived questions

A squirrel, a woodpecker, a redwinged blackbird,
a small scurrying deer mouse -
each cast their attention across my storied leaves

Yet, they are oblivous
to the crusades and machinations of man,
so carry on with their chattering and flight

I sit with my feet planted in the earth
wondering if I, too, can reach such freedom 
as I perceive them to possess 

Blind as I am to their struggles for survival,
I create poetry where ought be a prayer and a eulogy
to the fallen of this land 

Burned in the war of man's greed, 
a trail of broken promises 
leading to a mass grave

Over which my people preside, 
preaching of what joy and with what simplicity 
the slain lived their lives, idiolozing a way of living they ruthlessly destroyed //

Many thanks to the folks on Instagram who contributed words for this poem! If you would like to participate in next week’s edition of Sunday Stanzas, check out my Substack notes anytime during the week and leave a random word in the comments or head to my IG story next weekend and submit your word prompt there.

Warm wishes,

Julia