Paige Menton lives outside Philadelphia where she teaches writing and environmental education to children. She grew up in Birmingham, Alabama and earned her bachelor’s in comparative literature from Brown. Her poetry has appeared in Prelude, New South, Forklift, Ohio, Kestrel, Matter, and other journals.
9
Onto something. Blue jays in
their separate arrival.
Each ash dead yet standing, each
shadow just as solid. Even the simple
scenes shift as the canopy opens, sky
shaken too, left behind to
gape. She bell jars a dozen
mayapples, ropes off a
sassafras. She senses an
impunity in the surround
but persists with each finite
gesture, solid the knowing
that came with the field guides
and nature walks before