Choices - Tess Gallagher

I go to the mountain side
of the house to cut saplings,

and clear a view to snow
on the mountain. But when I look up,
saw in hand, I see a nest clutched in
the uppermost branches.
I don’t cut that one.
I don’t cut the others either.
Suddenly, in every tree,
an unseen nest
where a mountain
would be.







for Drago Štambuk




Copyright Credit: Tess Gallagher, "Choices" from Midnight Lantern: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 2011 by Tess Gallagher. Reprinted by permission of Graywolf Press.

Source: Midnight Lantern: New and Selected Poems (Graywolf Press, 2011)