May 2021
Bio Note: For May’s theme of Remembering, I chose to write about my childhood, and the way my family
was poised between some of us who grew up in the Appalachian Mountains, and some of us who grew up in a city row
house. A few of us experienced both. I have published three chapbooks, the most recent of which is Icarus:
Anthropology of Addiction. I am English language poetry editor for Poetry Hall: A Chinese and English
Bilingual Journal and I serve on the board of the Council for Wisconsin Writers.
Leaves
My mother’s father crossed over
Blue Mountain
to settle in fertile Lancaster County.
Every time he walked
through the door of our row house
a wind of golden leaves
would blow in around him
swirling his legs
and scuttling across the floor.
We kids would become beagle pups
spinning and bouncing
in the yellow torrent
then collapsing in a tangled heap
our ears perked for stories
of abandoned mills
and ghosts in the mines.
Sometimes my mother would scurry
to sweep away Pop-Pop’s fall foliage.
Other times she let the leaves
just sit where they settled
crisping slowly to dust.
Every once in a while
she’d pick one up
maybe a maple leaf
thick-veined
and blushed with a hint of the devil
and press it firm
between well-worn leaves
of Emily Dickinson’s poetry.
©2021 Sylvia Cavanaugh
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