...about the bristlecone pine.
So common it’s normal, to be kept alive by a string,
getting by on a capillary’s dose of what you need.
Every day, everything ordinary gets older.
Like no one ever thought of it before.
No plaque, no tag
for fear of people
who live to destroy.
Hiding for safety? Nothing
more familiar than that. Just ask
so many kids. They know.
Especially hiding in plain sight,
as the saying goes. Just
getting by on not enough water,
not enough food in the gravel-flake
that passes for soil.
Not the gravel’s fault.
Who told you to plant yourself there?
Scarcely enough air. Just ask
anyone who’s shuffled up those faint trails.
From the Sierras across the valley,
Ansel Adams found his view
of where you stand,
shot the shadow of your footing
where the sun hadn’t surmounted,
Oh, he was special. I was just
out of breath.
is a retired clinical psychologist, former German major and restaurant reviewer, and a two-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Her poems have received Special Merit and Honorable Mention recognition in the Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial contest from judges Marge Piercy (2016) and B. H. Fairchild (2013).
Karen’s first complete sentence was, “Look at the moon!” Her work in fairy tales and dream interpretation, and her obsession with Kafka and flirtation with Buber, have led her inevitably to prose poems. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Comstock Poetry Review, B O D Y, CHEST, Rappahannock Poetry Review, Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, and Spillway. She is the author of a full-length collection, The Book of Knots and Their Untying (Kelsay Books, 2016), and three chapbooks from Kattywompus Press: Burrowing Song (2013), Eggs Satori (2014), and Kafka’s Cat (2019).
The poet shared her life with her late husband for 34 years, which were not enough. The Beautiful Leaves, a collection of poetry about his illness, death of cancer in 2018, and her grief, was released by Bamboo Dart Press in August 2023. She co-curates Fourth Sundays, a poetry series in Claremont, California.
