Ghost Forest
Ghost forests are areas of dead trees in former forests,
typically in coastal regions where rising sea levels or tectonic
shifts have altered the height of a land mass. - Wikipedia
The sea demands right of return, salting the earth.
Prayers will not deter the eager surf, send it home
to rest in its old bed. The long repose
of the ocean ends in a saline dawn. The dead
trees bear mute witness that human foundations
will crumble like sandcastles. Climbing the shore,
the waters neuter the land. Rising, they drive
the spirit from the trees, leaving the bones
to glow in the sun. Standing to their knees in brine,
the bare trunks are pale gallows for hubris, monuments
for the drowned land, flagpoles from a lost war.
Ghost forests are areas of dead trees in former forests,
typically in coastal regions where rising sea levels or tectonic
shifts have altered the height of a land mass. - Wikipedia
The sea demands right of return, salting the earth.
Prayers will not deter the eager surf, send it home
to rest in its old bed. The long repose
of the ocean ends in a saline dawn. The dead
trees bear mute witness that human foundations
will crumble like sandcastles. Climbing the shore,
the waters neuter the land. Rising, they drive
the spirit from the trees, leaving the bones
to glow in the sun. Standing to their knees in brine,
the bare trunks are pale gallows for hubris, monuments
for the drowned land, flagpoles from a lost war.
Keith Welch lives in Bloomington, Indiana where he works at the Indiana University Herman B Wells library. He has no MFA. He has poems published in The Tipton Poetry Journal, Open: Journal of Arts & Letters, Dime Show Review, and Literary Orphans, among others. He enjoys complicated board games, baking, talking to his cat, Alice C. Toklas, and meeting other poets. His website is keithwelchpoetry.com. On Twitter: @TheBloomington1.