Wind blows keen enigma into my blood and bones—
Only to be heard and answered in the woods,
on the trail to the falls.
Coniferous limbs furred with lichen and moss reach for me.
Their oracles rush me as black shadows
fall away before
my breath catches fear,
before lungwort
like frog skin
paves my path in living green
and dying brown.
That lichen doctors everything in this place.
I’ll whisper a prayer into the breeze
for the cedars to lead me off trail
down to the river;
snowberries and cottonwood lace its edge.
I need to rise with the water over river rocks
solid and stoic with secret.
-Keri Hakan
Keri Hakan was born and raised in Missouri but currently lives,loves and writes in Oregon. She holds a B.A. in English, a minor in Philosophy and is a certified Holistic Nutritionist. She has been published in the Spring 2019 edition of Windfall A Journal of Poetry of Place and in the Four Elements June 2019 edition of Tiny Seed Literary Journal.