November 2017
Kate Sontag
sontagk@ripon.edu
.After retiring from 22 years at Ripon College, I have moved to the Berkshires with my husband and two spaniels. While I miss my students, colleagues, prairie walks, and skies filled with sandhill cranes, I am nourished by the beauty of the mountains every time I walk up the road or take a drive. Co-editor (with David Graham) of After Confession: Poetry as Autobiography (Graywolf), my most recent publications include Cooking With The Muse (Tupelo), SoFloPoJo, One, and Crab Orchard Review

Black Knot Blues
 
 
Before our plum tree becomes a walking stick
we fight leaf and stem against the powdery mold.
Hurry my darling, come quick, come quick
 
we croon, prune, spray in repetitions thick
as jam. But galled limbs, trunk split then sold,
our plum tree becomes a walking stick,
 
leans most days under the stairs with a homesick
look for the outdoors, making us feel old.
Hurry my darling, come quick. Come quick, 
 
remember each fall how we’d pick and pick
until our ladders rocked and buckets rolled 
before our plum tree became a walking stick?
 
Some afternoons it’s easier than others to kick
windfall apples, chase dogs across the orchard.
Hurry my darling, come quick, come quick.
 
There must be some kind of upright trick 
to it all, stumble free, less knotted and gnarled.
Hurry my darling, come quick, come quick.
Our plum tree’s become a walking stick. ​
 ​​© 2017 Kate Sontag
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