Issue Twelve - March 2008

Facing Turtleback

By Anita Leigh Holladay 

Great mountain, gold
and green! Look at you,
looming above small farms
where island boys grew to manhood
stacking hay,          their sisters
watching other boys
while pinning washing to a line,
watched them in their minds while spinning,
looming, pining for a day
when they would leave
the farm (for just 
a day walk) hand in calloused hand
up past the firs into a realm
of spreading oaks,      where the air
grows golden high
above Crow Valley fog
and lose themselves in love,
however fogged the notions
of great manhood did appear.

Memory of one day—did it happen?—
just like that, appears,
keeps rocking through the minds
of two old lovers as they sit
side by side upon their porch, 
facing you, mountain, and the day
when hand will reach for calloused hand
and find there only fog.

©2008 Anita Leigh Holladay

Anita Leigh Holladay has considered herself a poet for around thirty years but has put more time into other pursuits, such as massage therapy, photography, and mothering. She has been published in an anthology dedicated to writer Meridel Le Sueur and has self-published some chapbooks but is still at work on her first full-length book of poetry. She has been active in the Orcas Island poetry community for the past decade.

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