This is Not an Inauguration Poem
Yesterday, I woke to rain shadow winds, heat and fire and fear.
“We are too broken,” my mind said. My body agreed, gave in.
On my apple tree, one leaf remained. It must have fought to survive, unaware
its destiny to make soft ground for ants and beetles, earthworms and me.
A cat mewled. A spider abandoned its web.
I miss the deer that walked into my yard.
If I had dug my hands into the ground, marveled at potato bugs, felt the slick of slugs,
mourned
the leavings of creatures who also call this home, could that have soothed my reptile brain?
Today the crescent moon set early. The air is calm and crisp. The leaf had fallen.
Inside, my peace lily prepares to bloom.
Heather Bourbeau’s work has appeared or will appear in 100 Word Story, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Kenyon Review,Meridian, The Stockholm Review of Literature, and SWWIM. She has worked with various UN agencies, including the UN peacekeeping mission in Liberia and UNICEF Somalia. She lives amid the sage and fog.
Editor-in-Chief Laura Lee Washburn is a University Professor, the Director of Creative Writing at Pittsburg State University in Kansas, and the author of This Good Warm Place: 10thAnniversary Expanded Edition (March Street) and Watching the Contortionists (Palanquin Chapbook Prize). Her poetry has appeared in such journals as Carolina Quarterly, Ninth Letter, The Sun, Red Rock Review, and Valparaiso Review. Harbor Review‘s micro-chap prize is named in her honor.
The Coop: A Poetry Cooperative 
Great poem, heather.