my second daughter refused to come out at birth
Each time labor moved forward,
she retreated back:
waited through the ice storm,
sliced branches off every tree in the yard
whether they bore fruit or not.
Cross five cleared fields.
Cross battlegrounds.
Mustard blossoms,
goldenrods. Fight
another farmer’s volunteers,
old posts lean south, brittling
remains of electric fencing,
overgrown gate twice as tall as stone walls.
****
We plied her here,
the first snow drops hanging tiny white heads.
So close to the ground.
We raised them up in villages to sing to the oncoming warmth—
spring peepers to hold,
small in her hand,
wet and hiding,
adding their verse to the chorus
listen little one,
we are calling only to you.
She waited.
****
I beat a rotting stump,
hollowed it out with my teeth,
my braid coming loose,
wrote song after song for her,
called now and now.
Taught the crickets.
Screamed,
keened
until the crows pleaded with me enough.
Posted signs every sixth tree,
drove nails into trunks,
bark growing over my words
before I even turned around.
****
We moved the ferns outside,
added hooks to soffit,
green arms unfurling by the dozen
reaching towards their first rain storm.
I waited.
We milled logs for her,
built vegetable beds for her,
poured dirt for her,
gathered mulch for her.
Wore worry lines in the floor.
Find root stock—
could still be growing any drupe,
too early to tell—
grafted plums or pears or peaches.
Too early to tell.
Asparagus crowns lay in the mud room
waiting, drying up more each day,
too early. And she stayed
to tell.
Primrose oil, figure eights for her.
In through the nose, out through the mouth for her.
Raspberry tea,
walk the edges of the forest,
stack firewood for her.
Beat rugs on clotheslines.
****
In our fields
black thorns guard the apple trees
who look the same from the road
but stab your hand when you reach, drawing back too late.
Liz Ann Young (she/her) lives on a small farm with dogs, cats, chickens, and some humans too, on land originally inhabited by the Haudenosaunee and Susquehannock peoples. She is working towards her PhD at Binghamton University and received her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is the longstanding poetry editor of Atlas + Alice and her work has been published by Black Heart, Big Muddy, Tinderbox Poetry, and San Pedro RiverReview, among others.