Lise Latreille, Barn Church (photograph)
We wake to a world
shaken out of square.
Tree limbs spike the lawn.
The live oaks are upended
& roots the size of a sedan
face sunward.
Every stoplight in town
is dark & the sidewalks
are slick with shucked leaves.
The creeks & bayous
are storm-swollen.
Shimmering runoff
bloats their banks.
Before the axes & the chainsaws
& the children carrying
what small limbs they can,
an after-storm stillness
so the whole town
speaks like church.
And in the swamp outside town,
a stand of bald cypress
is gaunt & silvered
in the brackish water.
Hawks call for prey
from their perches
at the marsh’s edge.
Saltwater & subsidence
etch a dark path
through the swamp.
The stories say
the river held us
in its mouth.
Then the river
shifted west again
& we were left
dry-boned & sorrowful.
We live now in later times,
with levees & spillways that hold the river
to its shores, with waters
rising yearly in the gulf.
Now is when we’d like to pray
but we’ve forgotten all the words.