Joan Larkin
White Pine
Walking to the studio
cane printing the dirt
I see you rising from a thicket
ragged ferns at your foot
deep grooves in your bark
around you a cloud of needles.
High on your trunk two moons
like scars of sheared-off breasts
where the chainsaw whined
and sap oozed from the wound.
Below them a dark articulate slit––
dead and living in one body.
Your cones open in warm air
give winged seeds to the wind
enough for a forest.
Death poem, wait.
Joan, keep walking.
(from Old Stranger by Joan Larkin, Alice James Books 2024)
Joan Larkin’s sixth book of poems, Old Stranger, was published by Alice James Books in 2024. Her previous books include Blue Hanuman and My Body: New and Selected Poems, recipient of the Publishing Triangle’s Audre Lorde Award. Joan co-founded Out & Out Books during the 1970s surge in lesbian-feminist literature and co-edited Gay and Lesbian Poetry in Our Time, among other anthologies. Her work includes Sor Juana’s Love Poems; Glad Day: Meditations for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender People; and The Living, a play about AIDS. She remains a lifelong teacher.