Taffy or candy corn, no,
sweeter still than a beignet
or a balanced blade of a cake knife,
a chainsaw on an ash tree trunk,
stripped from bark, peeling away,
sweet, for basketweaving.
We can remember past
and pretend our way tomorrow,
but miniscule present
weaves strip by strip,
binding permanently past us,
no matter how we try to spin it forward.
The artist, the basket-maker
could spend his month creating
and then burn the vessel of lost culture,
lost tongue, lost sound, lost words
of our sweet poetry.
How will we hold sugar, honey?
And the basket, thick at the top,
meaty, tapering:
toward a muscled thigh
bulging
black ash
and sweetgrass.
_____
* Native American basket-maker Jeremy Frey makes and burns his basket in a video titled Ash (2024).
Jan Wiezorek writes from southwestern Michigan and walks regularly along McCoy Creek Trail. He is author of the poetry chapbook Prayer’s Prairie (Michigan Writers Cooperative Press) and the forthcoming chapbook Forests of Woundedness (Seven Kitchens Press). Wiezorek’s poetry has appeared in The London Magazine, Vita Poetica, and BlazeVOX. Visit janwiezorek.substack.com.