Karen Rembold

Ironwood

Walking home this afternoon, the hazy
wet heat of Virginia summer heavy on my shoulders,
I hugged a young sycamore that reminded me of my sister:
lithe and supple, yet hard with latent strength
beneath the flaking bark that gave way to white underbelly.
New leaves were tentatively pushing out, fuzzy with fresh growth,
yet the netlike venations were already set, so complex
I could not trace one tendrilling vein to its end.
Cynic, objectivist, writer of terse satire,
she created determined creators, women and men
whose will stands out like the muscles under ironwood trees
that line the creek we used to inhabit on summer mornings,
rerouting streams through plugs of sticks and leaves.
Eventually the water would burst out in another place.
I dreamed of dams that could withstand the water,
stall the course of rivulets before it coasted down the next long stone,
but I think she knew it would spill out, and calculated
where it would need to flow in order to shape rock.