girl, dog, bird, pine, stream

Larkspur Trail
Carol Barrett

#Poetry #CarolBarrett #EunoiaReview #Larkspur #Hiking #Trail #Spaniel #Dove #Quail #Nuthatch

https://eunoiareview.wordpress.com/2026/06/21/larkspur-trail/

Larkspur Trail

Pine boughs nod their whisking yes
to this noble exercise of heart
and song, this wind-swept walk along

a foaming creek that pulls north
like a drunken river, the walkers’ arms
latched to torsos, ambling in rhythm,

hands hooked in loose seam, heads
cocked to the rush of water over wet
slate. A child in plaid skirt skips ahead

like a small stone tossed from the wrist.
A spaniel heads their way, bounding
beyond his master, pulling, intent

on covering the sun-smoked turf
before the sky can shift gears, settle
the doves in rafters, the quail in coveys

among the sage. The dog is happy
as the smell of barbecues
drifts through cedar slats. He makes

the walkers’ faces light. When they began,
they did not know any of this:
girl, dog, bird, pine, stream. Only

that the body needs its ground,
its holy place in the fine dust of things.
Nuthatch nesting, they won’t tell where.

Carol Barrett began writing poetry to support the widowed women she was counseling. She has since published three volumes of poetry, most recently Reading Wind, and one of creative nonfiction, Pansies, the first book in English about the Apostolic Lutheran community for outsiders. Carol currently supervises creative dissertations for students at two universities. She has lived in nine states of the US and in England.

Cutting Limbs

Dead and gone. Some harbor green
core, tough to split. If my father could
see me now: pruning saw, nippers
alternating to trim the limbs, cut
coarse stock, leaves brittle brown.

In work boots, he would stomp the pile
to break what could be broken.
Those that wouldn’t snap, he’d hit
over his knee, yank apart. More timid,
I try a thigh, jump when it works.

His stack went onto compost, or
bonfire fed by corn stalks, kiwi vines.
Intention: clear away haphazard limbs,
harbingers of death. Rake the final
stragglers into the fire, going full blast

to cover traces of what was, what grew,
what left, as all things leave, singly,
or in a grand havoc of heaps,
splintering mulch for memory, for what
will sustain us in the long song ahead.

Carol Barrett began writing poetry to support the widowed women she was counseling. She has since published three volumes of poetry, most recently Reading Wind, and one of creative nonfiction, Pansies, the first book in English about the Apostolic Lutheran community for outsiders. Carol currently supervises creative dissertations for students at two universities. She has lived in nine states of the US and in England.