Driftwood

The stones here are stones, the water is water,
and the spiny, scoured branches are not the bones of the lost.

What else but to stand here in the late sunlight,
as shadows flow over the flood-borne,
bone-stripped detritus of the years?

Thought is like this:
scattered, permeable to the dark.

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James Owens‘s newest book is Family Portrait with Scythe (Bottom Dog Press, 2020). His poems and translations appear widely in literary journals, including recent or upcoming publications in Grain, Dalhousie Review, Presence, Wild Court, and Honest Ulsterman. He earned an MFA at the University of Alabama and lives in a small town in northern Ontario.

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