Emma Goldman-Sherman
Forest
(after "Beach" by Stanley Plumly)
The end, I think, will be a little like
looking up as far as I can see
at the tops of the tulip trees
in a grove of sassafrass
ivy, lichen, moss
with all the early morning birds
waking to welcome my bare feet
standing in the bowl of the earth
no longer afraid
no longer any of the me's
I've purported to be
only soul and diaphanous—
a spattering of star matter dispersing
as patterned evocations
of light
