consider this a sunrise
For Cedar Lakes Estate
I could leave in the morning and have to catch my breath
in a nearby grocery parking lot. in fact I did that before
I got on the highway to arrive, past trees like shimmering
smoke at the side of the road, sun in my eyes near Boston
all to show up in a place that if it were a body has a
mountain in the shape of a home.
you can stand here up here ridgelines laid out before
you, beryl sky, etched horizons, and become someone new.
what I mean is if you look down you would see your tracks
in the snow, but you would not be able to follow them back
in any direction, up here among the blue spruce, the red oaks,
this high, peaked place where the deer slept, it is all unending.
i am coming to terms with how long transformation takes.
just when you think you are coming to the end, roses open up.
there you are at a new beginning. starting over is a lot like
changing your mind. here is here. here is also nowhere. pebbles.
fire. birch leaves shivering in the wind. bread crumbs. mark
your path in any way you think you should. plans are in effect
in this forest.
you can always choose to walk a different way around the lake.
in a nearby grocery parking lot. in fact I did that before
I got on the highway to arrive, past trees like shimmering
smoke at the side of the road, sun in my eyes near Boston
all to show up in a place that if it were a body has a
mountain in the shape of a home.
you can stand here up here ridgelines laid out before
you, beryl sky, etched horizons, and become someone new.
what I mean is if you look down you would see your tracks
in the snow, but you would not be able to follow them back
in any direction, up here among the blue spruce, the red oaks,
this high, peaked place where the deer slept, it is all unending.
i am coming to terms with how long transformation takes.
just when you think you are coming to the end, roses open up.
there you are at a new beginning. starting over is a lot like
changing your mind. here is here. here is also nowhere. pebbles.
fire. birch leaves shivering in the wind. bread crumbs. mark
your path in any way you think you should. plans are in effect
in this forest.
you can always choose to walk a different way around the lake.
January / February 2023
Erin Pesut studied writing at Warren Wilson College and earned her MFA from Columbia University. Her writing has appeared in Whale Road Review (forthcoming), Chautauqua (forthcoming), Poetry South, Camas, HeartWood, Legacy Magazine, The Peal and on Vermont Public Radio’s “Between The Lines: Poetry Moments For Vermonters, By Vermonters.” She was the inaugural poet-in-residence at the Cedar Lakes Estates Artist Residency in January 2022. Born in South Carolina, she now lives in Vermont.
Art: Kimberlee Frederick. I’ll Feel This Way Forever Because the Mycorrhizal Network Is Too Strong. Combination hand-cut and digital collage, 2022
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