Benjamin Cutler
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Night’s final breath clouds the day, hides what I already know: the dead, fallen oak rooted to this side of our stream that never dries, now a branched and broken bridge that crosses into the blue forested valley where mushrooms fruit—like revised memories— from mycelium as old and alive as a million griefs. * Here, we walked and foraged. Here, we found enough to fill ourselves before the harsh day could dissolve our shared ghosts and brief mysteries. What we gathered, you cleaned and I cooked—tasted earth and butter on each other's lips. * Today, I search only for the place where you left enough for another day’s harvest. Let the inevitable light rest a little longer; I want nothing to do with fogless mornings. |
Benjamin Cutler is an award-winning poet and author of The Geese Who Might be Gods (Main Street Rag, 2019). His poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize numerous times and has appeared in Zone 3, Tar River Poetry, and EcoTheo Review, among others. Cutler teaches high-school English and creative writing in the Southern Appalachian Mountains of western North Carolina where he lives with his family and frequents the local rivers and trails.