Orchard Labyrinth, overgrown

By Erin Clark

---

It’s hard to spot the outer starting place.
Instead, begin at the spiral’s heart, its quick.
               February crocuses poke, snowbells ring
               upwards through blood-brown clang of mud.

The sun and shade share space, un-aggrieved.
Your purpose in this hour is to walk
               these unknown paths, see your shadow drape
               across the whorls you’ve traced and those you’ve not.

Go. Add your erratic footfall. Sometimes
you must leap when there is no clear way.
               Be upheld by the forecast and the echo
               of each step: your years in microcosm.

Hear the creaking trunks, winterly and wise.
Pause in a sun-patch, then keep moving, chill-bid,
               unseen by the lashless knot-eyes of
               the dormant orchard, closed in their slow blink.

---

Erin Clark (she/her) is an American writer & priest living in London. Her work has appeared in publications in the US, UK and Canada, including The Selkie, the Oxonian Review, the New Critique, Free Verse Revolution, The Primer, Over/Exposed, the Crank, Geez, About Place and elsewhere. Her debut chapbook ​Whom Sea Left Behind will be out in 2023 (Alien Buddha Press). You can find her online at emclark.co or on Twitter @e_m_clark.

Erin's other work on Foreshadow:
Found poem: upon arrival at the Abbey (Poetry, July 2023)