Might as well go on
I was walking in the graveyard
When I heard that great creaking
of a pine swaying in the wind.
With each gust it hummed, as if
a giant cicada lay
beneath its bark. To you,
I was the sequoia –
she who embraces flames,
endures disaster, grows taller –
But I am no more resilient
than this scraggy pine,
Whining in the wind. Or
the swallows, who turn
to falling leaves, relinquish
Limp bodies to the wind –
And seem to land on their feet
by some sweet fortune.
Why praise resilience?
I have no other option
than to keep standing. After all,
It’d be quite inconsiderate to
give up living, to topple over
Atop all these graves.
Housefire
I catch absence in motion infantile form drifting, delicate
a ghost giggles, given the insatiable synapses caressing speck of spacetime curious smile, clever
smoke! thin connector you are, soft as light, white hue whizzes, fires off images, but crisscross
nothing
and every inch of eyeball wiggling, igniting ligament with particles they are
they are the same
ghost nosing over yellow ochre, aquamarine odorant smoke floats wisps wonder whose
conductor casts that pattern? dancing about, dopamine reflected off the light and dancing, all
that falls away reminds me: neuronal dust gobbles all reminds me: keep my head suspensory I
haven’t got adrenaline gently, every lens vibrates, vibrates with the falling so funny it means
photons absorb the mirror window fails it means control forever thrown, in fact, over.
Biographical Note: Emily Hollander is a junior at Wesleyan University where she studies English with a Creative Writing concentration and Environmental Studies in addition to competing on the Division III Cross Country and Track & Field teams and serving as poetry editor for Wesleyan’s literary magazine, The Lavender. In her poetry, she likes to play, experiment, and explore questions she does not know the answer to. When she is not writing poems or running, she enjoys hiking, painting, and working on Wesleyan’s collectively-run organic farm.