Holdfast
Returning from a brief weekend away
everything changed—
broken shells on the barn floor
four yellow swallow beaks gape
above the nest rim—
all the weeds in full bloom
in defiance of
of my feeble attempts.
This tending and judging
what stays and what goes
each year becomes more
effort wasted—
why pretend a garden
when the pasture returns
to ash woodland, rose, and horsetail?
Soon the trail I have carved
will be engulfed.
I feel myself shrinking
into a bigger world—standing
in a green circle— enclosed.
I let the scythe and machete
rust in the woodshed and watch
the embrace of wild cucumber vines—
let the birds build nests
with my hair, morning glory lace
my legs with tendrils.
I am sending out roots
that can’t be pulled.
.
Patricia Farrell lives in rural western Oregon. Formerly a biologist and landscape architect, she completed the Certificate of Creative Writing program from Linfield University in 2021. Her poems have been published in Paper Gardens, Camas Literary Journal, Verseweavers, The Thieving Magpie, Wild Roof Journal, and Stone Poetry Quarterly. In 2023 she won first place in the New Poets category of the Oregon Poetry Association contest. When not writing she practices gardening, dog walking, and paying attention. She writes to capture memories, mental meanderings, and the wonders and despairs of living in this beautiful world.
Stone Poetry Quarterly 