Here’s a sample poem from Four Blue Eggs. The poem also appeared in The Wayfarer.
West Woods Cemetery
Sharing the ground with the low stones
of an old wall, a thickly scarred maple,
perhaps not even a sapling when names
were etched in granite, spreads its limbs
to shade a patch of club moss. In a hollow
high on the trunk, a family of raccoons
wakes in the midday sun. Tiny, patched heads
peek with sleepy eyes from the tear-shaped
opening; a cautious mother tries to shield
her suckling kits from those who might
steal them. A striped tail slipping through
the crease of wood or an outstretched leg
is reprimanded back into protection
of the den. Too small to venture down the tree,
the babies have not yet tested the dexterity
of their hands, never pressed an acorn
or frog between them, nor tunneled beneath
the fixed stakes of a fence. Chattering
like birds, they don’t sense the luck of birth,
sequestered above grassy hummocks
half-empty with nearly forgotten tombs.
Soon they will learn the secrets of the mask,
how to face a moonless night and scavenge
the dull nocturne of suburbia. However crafty
and industrious the newborns become,
it will be hard to pass up the easy traverse
across a paved road, and scurry fast enough
to miss the black tumult of oncoming tires;
flies will swarm in silent thunder around
gnarled grey fur stuck in unburied rigor,
outstretched paws clawing at a thin gray sky.
Amy Nawrocki 