Today's poem is by Triin Paja

Shelter
       

a fox jumps from the twig-sinewed forest.
winter gnaws on the ruins of stags, bone rags,
hoarse birdsong. a child says winter, meaning
father. mother was a river, and below the ice,
her children were swimming. it was easier
for father to love the earth than another,
to adore shadows who do not have mouths.
in January, I send him a letter to say
a grey heron was locked in a frozen river
and consumed by foxes. he mumbles
how even saints were fed to bears,
or he is only snowing gently,
only a boy brave enough
to drink from a cow’s udders
in a field feathered in dandelion seeds.
grandfather shepherded cows in that field,
and if the dead may choose one field,
then this is my father’s field.
my life is the distance from that field.
I love only rivers, rivers, rivers.

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Copyright © 2023 Triin Paja All rights reserved
from Black Warrior Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission