by Andrew McCall

where have you been
this flame-tinged season?
A long drought
chewed wounds in the earth,
made you hole up, waiting
for another season.

I, too, stayed low,
choking on smoke from Canada –
particulate and savory, – caught
in the soft tissue of my tongue
leaving a tinge of barbecued
forests and singed duff.

After three days of rain
you remembered
yourself, rose and broke
open your hardpan
mantle; I smelled
the wringing out of your green
fronds and walked back into you.

I tripped over a cup fungus
still burrowing its way
from the underground, holding
new wetness in its mouth.

I stilled myself on a
ironwood branch,
moist and thick, like
my father’s bicep
after his work
in the fields.

I scattered the striders
flashing downstream
like thoughts
in a waking mind.

No big god cared
enough to clean up our ashes
and cinders.

Instead,
the swarming little ones
made the resurrection:
an old trickle in the woods,
ghost pipes
glistening and translucent,
the bold seed sprouting late
in summer’s hum.

Andy McCall as born in Missouri and teaches ecology, ecopoetics, and botany at Denison University in Ohio. Some of his work can be found in Canary, Lascaux Review, and 2River View.