Poplars

Poem by Terri Watrous Berry

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I won’t let them take the poplars down.
Saws ready to swirl, hoping to save
crumbling concrete, but if they do
my taproot too will be severed.
There is so little left now and
the wind in those trees speaks
only to me, but it whispers Yes ─
we were all really once there.
We were all really once there,
all of those summer-dew mornings
and fan-humming hot afternoons,
nights when the poplars would
rustle, stirring the curtains 
at the window of my bedroom,
stirring the curtains at
the window of my soul.
I am the only one left to hear
the rustle and to remember, and
I won’t let them take the poplars down.

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Terri Watrous Berry is a Michigan septuagenarian whose work has appeared over the past thirty-five years in anthologies, journals, magazines, and newspapers, including this fall in Gyroscope Review, Ms. Aligned's Coming of Age, Waco Cultural Arts 2023 anthology, Wild Librarian Press' Wild Crone Wisdom, and The Devil's Party Dress' Instant Noodles.