Poetry: “Casting” by Noel Sloboda

From between toppled logs, spider legs and
mouse droppings spill, as wood downed once

again falls like fate, and I prepare to

rebuild. Scanning the wreckage, I search
for a catch to release the base row

committed to ripening in place.

The rotten logs must be wrestled loose,
carted to the deep woods to be forgotten—

I know from years past, they won’t go

without a fight with the living, clinging
to muddy March ground, as if to suggest

the recently dead dream of roots.

 

Noel Sloboda teaches at Penn State York and serves as dramaturg for the Harrisburg Shakespeare Company. He is the author of the collection Shell Games (2008) as well as two chapbooks. Learn more here: http://www2.yk.psu.edu/sites/njs16/.