Ballad of the Mountain Turtle

And when it was finally over, I was happy for the silence there,
and the dark—when eating blackberries by the side of the road,
I had no one to share them with but myself;
and when the late-summer showers
left an insular Glenwood neatly installed in the bank of the river,
its enameled surface turned the leaves so vibrant
you’d swear they’d been glazed
and overfilled—the green about to burst through,
only a mother and her ducklings bore witness;
a tied fly & a run of line; a beaver, who,
without need for reflection, went back to his day
beneath the water.

Terry L. Kennedy
“Ballad of the Mountain Turtle” is from Until the Clouds Shatter the Light that Plates our Lives (Jeanne Duval Editions, 2011).