THE TUG by Catherine L. Schweig

 

The Tug

I remember you, rooted into the pasture,
set against autumn’s breath as I walked by:

your capillary arms reaching into life, bare
and delicate, like morning and moss, and

the soft consideration that beauty remains,
even after all adornment has decayed.

Yesterday, cawing winds sprinkled you with
a murder of crows. Today, you beckon chirping

cardinals from across the fence. The brevity of
these black and red-feathered frocks hint at

all those little moments that open and close 
before us, like mouths of newborns asking

to be nursed. Now, I want to shield you from
winter, offer you milk from a warm breast,

forgetting that this pause, is also necessary.
I seem to forget many things these days, and

wonder if I might also stand, unadorned, before
cold and rain, my green gone, extended into

life’s opacity with branches open—trusting
I am inhabiting fields where I’m meant to be,

syncopating with earth, releasing leaves 
into the mist, when cold winds come tugging.

(This poem first appeared in The Wild Word Magazine, where it was nominated for the 'Best of the Net' anthology) 

Catherine L. Schweig founded Journey of the Heart in 2012, an international online poetry project dedicated to honoring women’s voices, for which she compiled, edited and published five anthologies. She serves on the board of the Janavi Held Endowed Poetry and Art Grant, and published Janavi Held’s Whispers from Her Deathbed: A Posthumous Poetry Collection. Catherine frequents the woods, feeling most at home in nature. Some of her nature photography appears in Still Point Arts Quarterly. She and her husband mentor students in heart-centered ahimsa living and Bhakti psychology from their home in Eastern Virginia.

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