BPR 51 | 2024
The Vanished
A tobacco-colored dawn
shouldered apart the old elms
standing guard. Those
dead of the Dutch disease
had been felled one by one,
splintered like mainmasts
in a gale, only the north
rank surviving in that
footage in slow motion.
Through the green
emptiness of late afternoon,
crows stranded at dusk,
I drifted through scenes
I’d never see again,
only the ghosts in company.