No spring

The Judas-trees have bloomed
we’re mourning again
no spring
no country
and blood everywhere.

When kissing the earth

They talked about a cavalry girl
walking. Tenacity
crossing valleys, mountains.
Saying as she goes,
how much I believed
how bound I was.
Foremost when climbing
mountains and valleys,
kissing the earth with a breath
no one knows.
As if the mountains were beginning for the first time.
The valleys for the first time traversed.

The mountains remained far away from us

My mother asks about that shifting memory
did we offend the mountains she says.
Are the mountains angry with us?
I love the flowers my mother says.
If I die
gather wildflowers, place them
on my chest.
Speaking this way my mother says suddenly
is the world a lie or the person.
My father driving the car straight toward the mountains
not looking back
says the person is the lie.
The person’s the lie.
Just like the weight of those cradles
just like the glazed beauty of that acorn
the person is the lie.
Each thing appears to us, is lost
the wind brushes us and withdraws.
And like wounds healed by writing, the world
one day heals.
Oh those who don’t heal
their milk smell,
the mother regarding her blue veins feels
grief
the mother regarding the mountains sighs,
the birth.
We move along the road
my mother my father
and desolation
we move toward the mountains that aren’t ours.
And at a crossroads our souls entangle
a moment between past and future
we wait
as though only that moment exists
always that moment.
Father’s indecision
Mother’s silence my
confusion
the past and future were taken from us
we look at the mountains
there is no consolation
and there will be none…

Nell Wright is a writer, translator, and visual artist whose work has appeared in The Paris Review, The New Yorker, Poem-a-Day, and elsewhere.