by Ember Jones
After J. Scott Brownlee
In the southern Appalachians, there are no hurricanes.
We touch no oceans. We are mountains clothed in mist
and velvet moss, and in the fall, we are wildfires burning
through the night. Today, we are a river of wind.
Let it wash away your car, your home, your garden.
There will be no Ark to carry you. There is no lightning
to split the earth into sky and ocean: There are only sheets
of rain. The trees bring their fire to the ground. The gingkos
surrender their yellow leaves. And the mountains—I can hear
the groan of rock and mud against the storm.
River, if you
wash us away, please save your gentlest winds for the birds,
the salamanders, the ground mice, the beetles. Or take me next.
I am scared, but I am yours to carry if only you wash us gently
to deliverance. Fill me with earth, with water, with leaves.
I don’t want to go. But if I must, please teach me of force,
of wilderness in a way my heart can understand. Teach me
to do what I must. Teach me to become the river that swallows
fire. Wash away my human and feed me animal’s instinct.
I am a rabbit sheltering on high ground. I am a bird’s nest
with wind-shattered eggs. If there will be no Ark, river,
then teach me to let go. Let me be only breath. Show me how
to become the wildflower that sprouts just after the storm.
***
Ember Jones is a student of ecology and environmental conservation and a writer from North Carolina. She currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief of her university’s student literary magazine, The Peel Review. Right now, she’s probably in the woods looking for birds.
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