What Are You Laureate of Today?

Today’s prompt was to be Poet Laureate of something – a place, a species, a time of day. I chose to be the voice of Bartholomew’s Cobble, a nearby natural landmark, to become the advocate for the trees, the river, the small inhabitants of hedge and meadow so one would know about it’s small miracles and hidden mercies.

In a small eastern town

at a bend in the river,

a curve in the road,

a sign marks the site of

a natural wonder

where, for a nominal fee,

anyone can wander through meadows

and old growth forest,

see ancient rocks cobbled together,

towering monoliths that overlook

a winding flow of duck-speckled water.

Where, in winter’s deep snow

one can track the demise of

some small tunneling creature

at the claws of a silent owl

or the jaws of a hungry fox

while the Hunter’s Moon

watches with indifference.

Or where, in spring,

one can hear the Bobolink call

from the barberry hedge,

where, in summer even the crickets exclaim over the

sweet, soft smell of the meadow grasses

and the way the sun leans against

the trunk of the sycamore and where,

in autumn, leaves are sky bound things,

strangers to the earth

as the wind loosens their moorings

and sends them sailing, lilting

through the air

to rest on grass and hedge,

brook and rill,

road and path.

There they stay

looking up at the sky

until winter closes their eyes.