What Stories

by Eleanor Berry

Photo by Richard Berry

What Stories

         Baskett Slough

The summer drought has stretched
well into September. From all the great marsh, no mirrors
flash sky back to our eyes, no gabbling conversation
reaches our ears. On the slopes, the grass,
long since gone to seed, is the color of old parchment.

Still holding their green, the crowns of the oaks
punctuate, in random-seeming patterns,
the wordless land. If we can learn to read
this strange writing, what stories
will it tell us?

Eleanor

Eleanor Berry’s latest poetry collection, Works of Wildfire, won the 2022 Grayson Books Chapbook Award. Her earlier collections are Green November, No Constant Hues, and Only So Far. A past president of the Oregon Poetry Association and the National Federation of State Poetry Societies, Berry co-founded and chairs the Mid-Valley Poetry Society. She has taught literature and writing at several Wisconsin colleges and universities, as well as Willamette University, and led poetry workshops for OPA, Sitka, and other literary and arts organizations.