Maypole

Dark dawn, searchlight,
take the chainsaw and our son
fresh firpine chosen
in the fog air, cut it down
brave, the one tree already
ready, almost, to fall:
flowercrowned, worshiping
rainbow ribbon silky on the spool,
liquid chrysalis, my task
water, rosemary
remembering, sea salt, tears,
in the glass bowl scattering
true patterns
woven in and out like lightwaves
orient suntilt always
orbiting the rottrunk blooming
in the backyard, shy mayflower, lost violet
we wake to find
drystraw lifecovered,
weeping cherry,
old scars, healing
the green nipplebud opening,
a newsprung branch.

---

Katherine Hagopian Berry (she/her) has appeared in the Café Review, Enough: Poems of Resistance and Protest, Balancing Act II: An Anthology of Poetry by Fifty Maine Women, Glass: Poet’s Resist, and Frost Meadow Review. Her first collection of poetry, Mast Year, was published by Littoral Books in March 2020. She has work forthcoming in Strange Fire, Jewish Voices on the Pandemic, and Rise-Up Review, and is a poetry reader for the Maine Review.