True by Cathy Barber

True by Cathy Barber

The fern, its fronds’
sugary underside, ridges
of next year and the ones beyond.
They must want to sleep,
these plants, these trees,
not in their wintry way,
but in our human, foggy way,
screened from the world
by the furry veil of another world.
The trees’ blue heads must seek
the forest floor in the dark,
curl up with their rooty feet,
leave behind the owls eating their mice.

Previously published in Sweet

Circling Back by Cathy Barber

At the window, a white moth
against the pitch of night, its flicker of wings
and obscure skittering along glass
informs the under view, the structure,
some universal pattern of nature, perhaps,
that we mortals cannot identify.

Beating a path, circling that is not round,
tethered always to that home place, the heart,
which stays constant through all its forays.
When the tiny presence moves on, see
the memory against the window.

Previously published in MCoffee Anthology

Cathy Barber has an MA in English from California State University and an MFA in Poetry from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her work has been published in a wide range of journals and anthologies including the San Francisco Bay Guardian, the Australian Medical Journal, Slant and Kestrel. Her work has been anthologized in Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California, and The Cancer Poetry Project Vol 2.