Soon, the longest night of this long, dark year will be behind us; and, less than a fortnight after that, 2020 itself will be gone. We are not the same people we were a year ago. So much has been lost, unraveled, rearranged.

In this month’s Poem of the Month, poet Polly Brown’s spare, elegant lines movingly evoke this sense of loss and disorientation that is universal to all who must navigate the new normal of survivors, to all of us “still here.”

Still Here

by Polly Brown

Remember when the tree men came,

cut down the spruce

all in an afternoon —

remember, as twilight settled,

how birds swooped out

from nearby trees,

trying to open a doorway through the air

into rest they knew

they ought to find there:

again and again, swooping, hoping,

lost. I keep trying to arrive

on a branch

of your understanding:

in some other world close by

still whole,

still rare.

Polly Brown's most recent book, Pebble Leaf Feather Knife, from Cherry Grove Editions, includes several poems first written at Old Frog Pond Farm. She's a member of the Boston area group, Every Other Thursday Poets, grateful to be zooming with them through the pandemic. Other poems appear this fall in Naugatuck River Review and Appalachia. More at http://pollybrownpoet.blogspot.com/