LYNN FAST
★ ★ ★ ★
POETRY
Image by Markus Spiske
THE CIDERY
Beneath the gratified crab, the curved pathway
is crowded
in crushed and crumbling applets.
Listing yellowjackets
lap them up as they pitch and stagger, stumbling
from one fermented mound of mash
to the next, delirious
in their bounty
while new offerings tumble down—smacking
through leaves, pinballing
off branches, thudding and rolling, bright and round
and deliciously bruised.
The scent spins my senses as more burst
beneath my shoe, the buzz of satisfied customers
escorting me out of the wood.
THE WILLOW MOTHER
The willow mother
grows
tiny new nurslings
all along
the entirety of her trunk, wanting
her family near her.
She leans low across the river,
her babies
climbing and tumbling,
and drops golden leaves, one
by one, into
the water below—
offerings
to the gods
for her continued good fortune.
Lynn Fast grew up skinning her knees in the small town of Winsted, MN. She went on to study opera and creative writing at the College of St. Benedict and the University of MN, though it was in romping with her two boys in the wilds of MN where she truly found her voice. She’s been a Bluegrass singer, a tap dancer, and a homeschooler, she’s dabbled with microgreens and praying mantis hatchery, and has been known to guerilla plant natives in wild places. It is these wild
places which inspire the body of her work. Playful and intimate, her poems dissolve the barrier between us and the natural world. You can find her work forthcoming in the anthology Awake in the World, Vol 3 (Riverfeet Press). Lynn currently works at the MN Landscape Arboretum.
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Beautiful in every way.
Loving the intimate view into the natural world!
I feel your love and connection to the earth
The pictures your words create inspire me to really LOOK into my world!