and one tree

When you feel paralyzed by the pointlessness of temporary fashion, or when dull or predictable work is lauded, try new things that will surprise you as you work for the joy of the process, remembering that all a writer needs are four true readers & one of them can be a tree.

—Brenda Hillman, from “Dear emerging, pre-emerging & post-emerging poets,” In a Few Minutes Before Later (Wesleyan U. Press, 2022)

emerging poet

No longer an emerging poet, I imagine myself a cicada, buried in the ground at a shallow depth, wrapped in a paper casing of my poems, waiting to emerge from the earth seventeen years hence. For no reason. Making sounds no one wants the hear.