Whispers and Echoes

Sleeping kudzu drags early spring trees
down with slender gray fingers
revealing forest to the road

I drive past while my memories sleep
through winter and see her vast potential
a dormant landscape to be explored

But by summer I’ll only see a wall of green
and forget the depth of her— hidden
behind overgrown frowns and shrugs

Let me forget the past so I can remember the future

Bartholomew Barker is an organizer of Living Poetry, a collection of poetry lovers in North Carolina. Born and raised in Ohio, studied in Chicago, he worked in Connecticut for nearly twenty years before moving to Hillsborough where he makes money as a computer programmer to fund his poetry habit.

www.bartbarkerpoet.com

Selected by the editor as a featured submission, November 2021