Terry S. Johnson, a founding steering committee member of Straw Dog, lives in Hampshire County. She earned her M.F.A. from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her first poetry book, Coalescence, won a New England Book Festival honorable mention. Plunge, her second collection, begins in World War II Italy. ww.terrysjohnsonpoet.com.
New England Swamp Trail
Early Spring 2020
I usually ignore the skunk cabbage nubs
snarling upward through thawing muck-brown,
my senses recalling summer stink.
I’d turn my gaze skyward
towards flush of red maple blooms.
Ah . . . now . . . the grounded twirling shoots.
Torches of burning hope,
pure green and glowing.