The High Place

How many winters gone
And how many remain?

I’ve seen seedlings
Grow to be masts of great ships
Felled by men with rum-warmed
Bellies

Into gentle beds of
Evergreen boughs

How many more times
Will the tamarack fade into
A golden amber bouquet
That reminds me of the many
Sorrows of being
Intensified in my
Wilderness dreams
Like a cathedral of light

How many moons

To the deep valley stream,
To earth’s bottom
The only place I believe
I’ll see you again

Anthony Emerson is a writer living in northern Maine. His essay “Katahdin” about how his relationship to nature has changed in the time of COVID-19 is forthcoming in Appalachia Journal. He is currently at work on his first novel.