what falls to ground

by

Lucinda Trew

 

it is the simplest of truths, really
all that rises, falls
Newton’s apple to the head
the scissor-snip of marionette thread

meteors and acorns, single-engine
planes, airmen tumbling onto Dover
sand, gravity is when grace nose-dives
the consequence of spacetime

curling up like warped linoleum
around water stains and heavy tread
it is satellite debris spiraling in orbit
glowing butts flicked from car windows

leaving a trail of sparks speeding
through dark, it is the wisp of dandelion
thread drifting skyward with seed
and breath

held in a wish, a buoyant odds-defying
prayer that what falls to ground
rises, and that even weeds
have wings

Lucinda Trew is a poet and essayist whose work has been featured in Bloodroot Literary Magazine, Cathexis Northwest, MockingHeart Review, storySouth, Eastern Iowa Review, and other journals and anthologies. She was named a North Carolina Poetry Society poet laureate award finalist in 2021 and 2022, is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, a Best of the Net nominee, and recipient of Boulevard Magazine’s 2023 Emerging Poet Award. She teaches at Wingate University and lives and writes in Union County, N.C. with her jazz musician husband, two dogs, one cat, and far too many books to count.