Elegy for Mother Nature By Sam Barbee

                            Elegy for Mother Nature
 
I wait with a windchime, idle in wind:
Tentacles hanging, each lifeline tangled
As they shimmer, glimmer floating empty –
Never again will I hear their jangle.
 
I watch with a sundial, shadowed midday:
Bright noon sun has withdrawn itself quickly –
My dulled point sees no direction today
Because Mother's sun has set too early.
 
I squat unsure to practice my lament.
Fresh rain has turned to dust – sand of slow death –
Powdered over her eyes in time to win
this sad hour and seal her parting breath.
 
Our years with our Mother were sweet and fine.
Her sun set early. Her heart keeps no time.

Sam Barbee’s poems have appeared in Poetry South, The NC Literary Review, Crucible, Asheville Poetry Review, Main Street Rag, The Southern Poetry Anthology VII: North Carolina; plus on-line journals Vox Poetica, Courtland Review, and New Verse News.  His second poetry collection, That Rain We Needed (2016, Press 53), was a nominee for the Roanoke-Chowan Award as one of North Carolina’s best poetry collections of 2016; and is a Pushcart nominee.