What I know this morning when the car is packed—
that you are here in this field with river reserve views, mossy estuary crowded with algae, reeds, and loons, the rotted rope swing someone else strapped to the oak so long so long ago the bark edged over the woven strands so we cannot remove or fix it without hurting the tree the way you and I are not the same body but almost the same body, the way the river and ocean meet but not where we can see it or—the way we pulled stones from the pasture and expected things—leeks, snap peas, sun golds to grow but only some grew and we never knew which would or why despite soil testing and the maintenance amateur farmers do half because we want the food and half for productivity—
the way tidal charts suggest surety we cannot have or how growing feels like accomplishment, especially when the children are growing out of the home and I am unable to leave it much—mulch, fertilizer, amino acids, fish oil, coffee filters wet with grinds all worked into the ground with the voles and nuthatches flitting here here here here here here here here here and gone and this is all I can know this morning as the Buzzard’s Bay tide rises and falls back, the wind rustles the last of the fall leaves, garden tucked for winter— that you are here, that given the chance you would come back again.
Emily Franklin‘s work has been published in The New York Times, The London Sunday Times, Guernica, The Cincinnati Review, New Ohio Review, Hobart, Blackbird, The Rumpus, River Styx, and The Journal among other places as well as featured on National Public Radio, and named notable by the Association of Jewish Libraries. Emily’s debut poetry collection TELL ME HOW YOU GOT HERE was published by Terrapin Books in February 2021.