Today's poem is by Jack B. Bedell

Ghost Forest
        —Manchac, after Frank Relle's photograph, "Alhambra"

1.

Backlit by city and refinery's glow
these cypress bones shimmer

on the still lake's surface.
It's easy to see a storm's

coming with the sky rolling
gray overhead and the water

glass-calm. Even easier to know
these trees have weathered

some rough winds, their branches
here and there, pointing this

a-way and that at what
we've done to this place.

Their trunks gather here
like hoary, Old Testament prophets

come down from the mountain
to rest in this body dump,

gold light hitting the moss
all Luminol-shine and whisper.

2.

Water's the only thing
that gets in here easily, pushed

in by storms or poured
through spillway gates.

Years of its salt have loosened
the coast line's faith, turned

forest to roots and sawgrass,
constant loss. This water

rises, seeps, leaves doubt
everywhere dirt should be.

It's not worth lying down
in the hull of your boat

to scrape under the rail trellis
if you're only coming here

to see what used to be. Do it
so you can hear the ghost forest

sing about what's coming next
after the water's had its way.

3.

What is moss if it isn't
memory? It hangs off these branches,

sways on the breeze like Merton's
prayers, the closest these trees

will get to needles again. Everything else
here is dead still, waiting for the storm

to blow in. No frog bellow,
no heron flap—just moss

waving and the water's slow rise
to prove this place breathes.

Stillness is faith, locust's whine
benediction here, and this moss

knows all there is to know
about holding on, and air,

and how fully empty time is
with all this water aching

to fill it. Trunks. Branches.
Sky bruising into storm.

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Copyright © 2023 Jack B. Bedell All rights reserved
from Best Spiritual Literature: Vol. 7, 2022
Orison Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission