Aspens

          Golden Shovel from “Poem with an Embedded Line by Susan Cohen” by Barbara Crooker

We are shimmer. Trembling and shaking in all 
winds, sun-kissed skin, nourishing crown. We,
leaves and bark, nurse the caterpillars. See: their auras have
lingered—the swallowtails and mourning cloaks are
halos of yellow and onyx, copper and blue, these
pulsing paintings, each a nimbus of life. Our green moments,
sparked in moss. Our leaves may rend in the
harsh winds. We may ignite, fall to fire, golden
and red in our burning. We may die as trees,
but our thousand-year roots spread under the
earth, nearly immortal skeletons, and industrious,
and birthing ourselves to renewal, the bees
flitting by above our slender suckers. See us blazing in the
late mountain sun, bright even as the glow is fast falling
to night’s moonrise. How our branches bow in last light.

ANGIE MINKIN

Angie Minkin is an award-winning San Francisco–based poet who stands on her head for inspiration. Her work has been published in Birdy, Loch Raven Review, The MacGuffin, Rattle, The Unbroken Journal, and several other periodicals. Her chapbook Balm for the Living was published in May of 2023. Learn more at www.angieminkin.com.