Spring

Laying in the long grass

I am on the frontier!

Thumbing my way
Through the old growth forest
On the banks of the Allagash
The whisper of the wind
Feels like an ocean

I spot a cloud shaped
Like the old homestead

I am lost
In the North Country
Swarmed in a psychosis of blackflies

The dark woods
Are a symphony of bats
The earth is alive
With the scent of the ancient pines

Their needles are my home now

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.

[image: Allagash Wilderness Waterway | Dean Bennett]