Kenneth Pobo

BEECH FOREST
_{Gustav Klimt, Oil on canvas}

My parents say that if
I keep looking up,
I’ll see God—
I look hard.
The sky
seems moody,

changeable. I prefer
to stand among
beech trees, thin
and quiet.

In the forest’s light
I feel larger. Maybe
if I stay long enough
I’ll become a beech,
my feet taking root.
I’ll grow tall

and look the sky
in the eye—or
one of its many eyes—
my leaves dropping
to the sound of
autumn’s
copper piano.

Kenneth Pobo (he/him) is the author of twenty-one chapbooks and nine full-length collections. Recent books include Bend of Quiet (Blue Light Press), Loplop in a Red City (Circling Rivers), and most recently, At The Window, Silence (Fernwood Press). His work has appeared in Asheville Poetry Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Amsterdam Quarterly, Nimrod, Mudfish, Hawaii Review, and elsewhere.