Notes from an Epicenter
By John Linstrom
Sixteen Oaks Grove, Queens, NY
Sixteen oaks in two rows planted
down an island in the street:
school is closed, kids transplanted,
benches here are empty, clean and neat.
Auto shops still rollicking with laughter,
a boy walks by, dribbles his ball alone.
A bird keeps trilling, and will after;
the traffic, steady still, has slowed.
Sixteen oaks in two rows standing—
walkers pause, and then they quickly go.
John Linstrom’s poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in North American Review, The New Criterion, Atlanta Review, Vallum, and Cold Mountain Review. His nonfiction has recently appeared or is forthcoming in The Antioch Review and Newfound. He is series editor of The Liberty Hyde Bailey Library for Cornell University Press, making available the works of Progressive-Era environmental philosopher L. H. Bailey. He coedited The Liberty Hyde Bailey Gardener’s Companion: Essential Writings (Comstock-Cornell UP, 2019), and he prepared the centennial edition of Bailey’s ecospheric manifesto The Holy Earth (Counterpoint, 2015), featuring a new foreword by Wendell Berry. He currently lives with his wife and their joyful window garden in Queens, NY, where he is a doctoral candidate in English and American Literature at New York University. He also holds an MFA in Creative Writing and Environment from Iowa State University.
Photo by freestocks on Unsplash.