This responds to a prompt from the Emergence Magazine Nature Writing class, where we wrote a couple rough drafts then merged the parts we liked of each. This combines elements of mouthing the forest and sidebells wintergreen facts.
sidebells wintergreen canticle
if I press a leaf to my tongue
like a communion wafer
will it bring the Maine woods
right back into my body?
an act of transubstantiation
wintergreen not just standing in for but being
birch, granite, lupine
long-fingered bays
ice crystals suspended in air
all infusing my flesh
like blue juniper berries
pressed close under the skin
of a lean chicken breast
?
I crush a leaf and smell nothing
no, this Colorado wintergreen’s
just not the same
I give the one-sided bells a shake
and there’s only the silence of missing magic
but it’s time to stop looking elsewhere for awe
to grow content with what’s inside
the smallest circle of here
at hand, spruce sap bubbled on the bark
makes 4 small crystal balls
reflecting my place in the world back at me
at a time when divination’s a godsend
I press one gently, then bring finger to tongue
and savor the jolt of spruce essence
clearing my sinuses
fulfilling and fueling a new desire
for something missing from my day-to-day
like when a kiss divulged the plush inside of my lower lip
or when my left foot first stood firm
or my freed collarbones went warm for a week
I never quite stood the same
my ribs expanded
by how sharp life can be
