“Embraced,” by Martha Rhodes

Poetry faculty member Martha Rhodes was recently featured in Plume. Read an excerpt of “Embraced” below:

Embraced

I have visited an ancient redwood and heard it creak
as I’ve rested my cheek and ear against its trunk. It has received
my deepest sobs and my hundreds of fingerings along its soft bark.
Leaning into it, I have whispered to my most darling ones—
Mother, Lucy, my multi colored cats—as if they’ve coursed through
the tree’s vascular system to form an inner pool— their happy noise
so audible! I have stopped at the tree for hours over years,
in the shadow of Mt. Tam, and I have napped, at tree’s base,
inebriated, by the moldy brew of its memories, boiled up
to commingle with the mist of my breathings
of nose, mouth and cells so that I must slow, resist
rushing past, to recall the paddings of creatures
before me as well as my own over years…

 

Find the rest of this poem, as well as two others, here: https://plumepoetry.com/embraced/