ANASTASIA TOWNSEND

OUR ONE DAY’S MISSION

is to shear down the blackberry canes
to the ridge line’s crown of leggy trees,
an abandonment of thorns, locusts, maples,
a vague conviction of elders
drifted back to a former plot,
shoulders draped in oriole song, yearning
for the same sun on our blades
we work the stalks
the clean, white and stubborn clusters
hold, drag, lift
expose the blinking soil
stack to rest the murmurs of boughs
of two centuries ago
the men hauling cannon
along this same crest
above the river, the burden
nothing more
than to follow a river
to revolution