"Plea"
by Brian Duncan
- After Catherine Pierce’s Entreaty
Dear woods, never change.
Draw me out through my back gate, call me
with your drum of pileated woodpecker, your wild
turkey, pheasant, in the low branches. Bombard
me with acorns and beechnuts, bare-foot-prickle
of sweetgum balls. Draw me deeper with spring
peeper cacophony that disappears as I approach.
Bewilder me with bittersweet, service berry, and pokeweed.
Wrap me in arms of sweet-pepperbush, promise
me a new-born fawn curled up in the dead leaves,
a fox jogging on the path ahead, stopping to test the air.
Lead me on to your stream, the blue heron standing one-
footed in the shallows. A kingfisher dipping through
the surface. Show me a broken arrowhead just
emerging from the gravel bank.
If I try to leave, entrap me with greenbriar, catbriar, wild
rose. Make me bleed for you. Stall me with chicken-of-the-woods.
Entice me with puffballs, chanterelles. Trick me into brushing
up against poison ivy, leave me cursing you. Put a tick in me.
I will sweat for you, freeze for you, trudge through snow
and mud for you. Love me till the end.
Dear woods, never change.
Draw me out through my back gate, call me
with your drum of pileated woodpecker, your wild
turkey, pheasant, in the low branches. Bombard
me with acorns and beechnuts, bare-foot-prickle
of sweetgum balls. Draw me deeper with spring
peeper cacophony that disappears as I approach.
Bewilder me with bittersweet, service berry, and pokeweed.
Wrap me in arms of sweet-pepperbush, promise
me a new-born fawn curled up in the dead leaves,
a fox jogging on the path ahead, stopping to test the air.
Lead me on to your stream, the blue heron standing one-
footed in the shallows. A kingfisher dipping through
the surface. Show me a broken arrowhead just
emerging from the gravel bank.
If I try to leave, entrap me with greenbriar, catbriar, wild
rose. Make me bleed for you. Stall me with chicken-of-the-woods.
Entice me with puffballs, chanterelles. Trick me into brushing
up against poison ivy, leave me cursing you. Put a tick in me.
I will sweat for you, freeze for you, trudge through snow
and mud for you. Love me till the end.
Brian Duncan lives in Kendall Park, New Jersey with his wife, Margie, and two cats. He worked in a virology laboratory at Princeton University for many years and is now happily retired. He enjoys devoting his time to poetry, gardening, and hiking. He has poems out this year in ONE ART and Thimble, and in forthcoming issues of Whale Road Review and Passengers Journal.