Memory of earth

golden light leaves us in autumns of ruby moons

forests are hollow with stillness, silent falling

of leaves hushed as whispered wishes on the tongue

that rub of bones, shush of wind and

crows put to sleep

bared fingers, barren branches reach through open space

the moon of gentle memory is all that’s left full

earth murmurs remembrance of extinctions

drifting as a dead woman’s sigh, faint with the ice of wary

wind and stone, her bone

white feet rooted in dark earth, a copse offering a hearth

of sorts, of prescience, the odd omens of indistinct beings

for all this earth we mourn there is the other liminal invisible

who moves unseen, this nightmare nix fixed between worlds

but ever calling us here

***

Susan Zegarsky is a Polish-British writer and visual artist who writes fiction and poetry in French, English and Arabic. Her poetry has been featured in Santa Clara Review, Fahmidan, Grim & Gilded, Quail Bell, The Slake, Coffin Bell Journal, Ink in Thirds, Hyacinth Review, Prismatica, Autumn Sky, and other literary journals with new work always forthcoming. She is the author of the poetry collection Exsanguinarium. She can be found on her website zegarsky.com.