Emerging Voices from the Wild
George Moore
Traveling North
Come along then
past the knocked down fences
the windowless cedar farmhouse
where chickens abandoned the hard dirt yard
and out back behind the barn you’ll find
an edge of the world
a creek trailing silver over mossy black stone
and pearls in the water of lazy trout’s eyes
Then stepping on stones across the stream
one foot at a time we follow a boy
who I might have been before these choices
leading us into the deeper wood
His eyes are keen his hands loose at his sides
he climbs toward the hills beyond unaided
by maps or road signs or other lives
knows the trail by initials on the trees
walks without leaving footprints in the grass
he follows a path with a second sense
and knows we come along
up a creek an ancestor might have named
where he picks up a stone flat as a page
and skips it across the sun’s late glare
And there we can rest a bit and rub our feet
and get ready for there is a long way to go
we are heading north
but he never says where or gives a sign
yet we must travel light
staying to the trail
George Moore has published poetry in The Atlantic, Poetry, Colorado Review, North American Review, Valparaiso, and Orion. His first collection was a finalist for The National Poetry Series, and later work nominated for eight Pushcart Prizes. His collections include Children’s Drawings of the Universe (Salmon Poetry 2015) and Saint Agnes Outside the Walls (FutureCycle 2016). Moore taught literature and writing at the University of Colorado, Boulder, for many years, and now lives with his wife, a Canadian poet, on the south shore of Nova Scotia. More from this poet: