Cedar
(Alpena Walk June
10, 2022)
I smell felled
trees
before I see the
caution sign,
“Logging Ahead.”
Wet cedar in the
morning mist
chunks, striped
shreds —
a crow kvetches at
my presence
squeezing my
dismay
of another treeless
lot.
Yet, I live in a
wood house
where trees once
buffered
the winds of Lake
Huron.
I have gone to the
mill
bought lumber,
without thought
because I wanted
it
as if I was
breathing
an endless source
of oxygen.
I am distracted
by a red gate in a
field
covered in fracted
morning light.
The smell of
fallen cedars
and the sound of
irritated crows
fade
with
each
step.
Mourning Dove
(Alpena walk June
10, 2022)
This is the first
time
I have heard a
mourning dove
with its “who are
you” call.
I go to answer
but it has gone
silent
so, I go silent.
I Do Not Speak
(Alpena walk
September 28, 2022)
“Leaving out God and science” from
This Far In by Carl Phillips
I do not speak
animal
there are, too
many
languages to learn
with no teachers
just observers.
A sound
in the fielded
distance
is fractured
like fallen death
that lies across
my path.
Animal calls
of morning’s night
frightful to this
neophyte observer.
I cannot see
what I hear.
I cannot hear
what my mind sees
because I do not
speak
its language
but I feel it.
Shadow
Alpena Walk June
8, 2022
nesting
in the reedy scrim
of North Point
Road
crossing
disappearing into
Little Harry’s
Hunt Club
shadow
among shadows
lost to the
morning sunlight
I take another
step forward
Mercy
“Compassion
or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one's power to punish or
harm.” — Oxford Languages
I drove to the woods
to be removed, a traveller,
a visitor, a stranger,
someone filled with hope
vivid with desire —
a wisher of connection with
what was absent in my life.
Yet, there you lay,
the first thing I saw
half covered in last year’s
fallen leaves, unable to see,
beak open, soundlessly moving
sharing the air of the celadon canopy —
removed, a traveller, a visitor,
a stranger filled with hope —
vivid with desire
covered in opaque crimson mucus
and blue pieces of shell.
I could not see the clutch
that you had once been a part of.
Such a strange word “clutch”
considering how a few moments
changed your life.
Did you fall?
Were you rejected,
discarded by your mother?
I thought a moment.
There was no forbearance in my action,
I ended your life as quickly as I came upon it
telling myself that I
was showing
you
mercy.
Jeremy
Proehl - has had poems published in several anthologies: Kent State’s Edith Chase Symposium,
Hessler Street Fair, #ThisIsCle Poetry, and others. He has also
been published in print and online in the following journals: Headline
Poetry & Press, Ink Sweat & Tears, Poetry Pea, Muleskinner Journal, The
Westchester Review, Panoply, The Grindstone, Otherwise Engaged Literary & Art
Journal, The Milk House Journal, and others. He was nominated for The
Pushcart Prize in 2022.
Jeremy has participated in the Cleveland poetry scene, enjoying reading at open mics
for almost 20 years. He attends the biennial Dodge Poetry Festival and has participated in the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conferences, Napa Valley Writers’
Conference, Catamaran Writing Conference, the Lost Lake Writers Retreat and
other poetry workshops over the years. Dan Chiasson mentioned Jeremy in an article
he wrote for the August 2019 issue of The New Yorker.
He works in the garage-door industry. Jeremy and his wife have recently relocated
to their Michigan cabin with their two Labradors where they enjoy time in the woods.
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