Drawing her hands through her hair
She wove a braid from shoulder to waist,
Facing the rough bark
As if it were a looking glass.
She gathered memories enough.
Handkerchief tucked in a pocket,
Tin cup dangling at her hip,
She turned toward the evening light
Where it faded beyond the farthest peak.
Before she climbed the mountain
She found the tree again,
Stood tall beside its trunk.
Poem by Nan Jackson
Nan Jackson lives in mid-Michigan, with ancestral ties to Ontario and New England. A retired community college mathematics professor, she is one of Lansing’s sidewalk poets, her poem Shiawassee Street Bridge engraved in the pavement along the Lansing River Trail beside the Grand River not far from Michigan’s state capitol. Her poetry has appeared recently in Tulip Tree Review and Third Wednesday Magazine. Some of her poetry, including “Girl Setting Out at Dusk,” harkens back to formative years hiking solo and with others in the Sierra Nevada mountains and doing geology field work in California and Nevada.