Exposures

1

“It’s exciting,” she says of the wind here,

and I remember how, in my teens, I spread

my arms, loosed my hair,

to the strongest winds that moved

through the woods of my family’s

Connecticut home. But I understand how

pioneer women in the west went mad

from the wind that never ceased.

Perched here on the brow

of a low hill, I’m crosswise to the wind,

just above eyelevel to the short grasses

and wildflowers, all bent, quivering,

parallel diagonals pointing southeast

. They must be tough-rooted to hold

their spots in the ground. I, too,

hunker, try to push forth bloom.

How can I make the likes

of their small yellow suns,

delicate magenta stars?

2

Chilled even in full sun by the wind that pierced

three layers as if they were bare skin,

I’ve found retreat, seat on a warm rock,

shelter behind the dense brush bordering a stream,

invisible but audible, burbling in its channel downhill.

This shelter belt of shrubs and vines is thick

with blackberries starting to ripen. Deer, too,

have found them, and left their scat.

Elk, perhaps, as well, though that’s only a guess

what left these larger droppings.

3

“Bull snake. But I wouldn’t swear it’s not

a baby rattler. Be careful when you go back up.”

I’d thought a snake might share my liking

for these sun-warmed rocks, and I say so, keep

my cool just long enough

for my interlocutor to leave, then hastily

pack up and head downhill, away

from the reported snake, then back up

on the far side of the barn, even though

the detour means I have to shimmy under

rusty barbed wire to get back to the road.

Looking around to make sure no one

has witnessed my ignominious retreat, I walk

nonchalantly up the road, pretending to focus

only on the vistas unfolding below me.

Eleanor Berry lives in rural Lyons, Oregon. Her poetry has appeared widely in national and regional journals, and is included in various anthologies and collected in a book, Green November (Traprock Books, 2007). She organizes poetry events and is a past president of the Oregon State Poetry Association.