Lisa Creech Bledsoe

It's Spring So We're Both Amiable

Spiritual alchemy, I tell Crow.
That's what makes humans unique.
We can turn darkness into light.

The new ramps are like small rabbit ears
quivering everywhere in the greening slough,
making sharp alchemy of their own.

It's not the same, I say,
watching Crow sidewise while pulling
my boots out of sucking mud. That's
physical alchemy. Science.

Crow becomes shade, and is found by sun again.

We're tricky, I add. Just not uniquely so.
I'd swear Crow grins but
the truth is I'm being ignored.
Tolerated, so long as I don't pull any
loud blunders or stupid shit. Ha, I cackle,
as if I were prone to anything else.
Light into darkness on a regular schedule.

Still, that's spiritual alchemy
of a sort. Nothing Crow about that, though
it's true we're pinched from the same clay.

I've gleaned rock cress, toothwort, and waterleaf
for my bucket—they'll make a meal later in the day.
Mountain swamp vitamins, making me more mountain,
less mono-agriculture. I receive so much more
than I give.

Crow wings out of the slough toward the open field
in search of beetles, or late winterberries.
I wonder what Crow and I are becoming.

Watched by crows and friend to salamanders, Lisa Creech Bledsoe is a hiker, beekeeper, and writer living in the mountains of Western North Carolina. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and the author of two full-length books of poetry, Appalachian Ground (2019), and Wolf Laundry (2020). She has poems in The Blue Mountain Review, American Writers Review, Sky Island Journal, Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, Red Fez, and River Heron Review. She can be found at AppalachianGround.com