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Silviculture

Poetry by Becca Rae Rose

In April all the pinecones fall. If you hear a rattle, 
run. Prepare for fire season. 
Like a snake’s instrument inside its husk, 
a stay clear shake as it bounces from branch 
to branch, then crunch—velocity’s ability 
to weight the lightest body. But not enough
substance to thud on impact, just this tremble 
in its hull then still. You might think 
she was seeding but you’d be mistaken. 
A lodgepole is no dandelion—wind 
may scatter but these seeds first need 
flame. The thirty odd pinecones blown 
by my doorstep await a blaze. No matter 
if beside their scorch my home blooms
up to bare its bones, like a woman to a lover, knowing 
no other fire. A cone obeys its blueprint, made 
for this: wrapped tight in resin, like so many wings
pulled towards the body, for warmth, for winter.
Built for burning: a brittle bird guarding 
her seeds, holding them tight to her wooden 
heart, cradled in pulp & fiber, 
wanting to be taken by extreme 
heat: a martyr, a mother, craving the element 
to break herbaceous scales—puff once 
slender skin into so many openings:
seeds free      to soil,
                          to sink     and split, 
             to sprout.      What do I protect 
but these        very words.
    What do I pull close        to cradle 
          in the canopy         of my body,
what makings          of a garden 
          do I hold           in my blood, 
    waiting for a flame           to free.
          & before             me:
        what am I
                                      but the seed
     my mother               burned 
                       for                
or a burl                 in her
          knotted                   
                                        hands.

About the writer
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Becca Rae Rose is a poet and cross-genre writer from Sisters, Oregon, a place whose many mountain roads and myriad animal bodies greatly inform her work, most of which has been written while driving Highway 20—poems shook loose by the sight of roadkill or the swerve of the car to avoid tumbleweeds. On this hometown road she discovers a microcosm of the greater systems that affect her own body, unraveling how gender, flesh and the contemporary political moment knot together. She is an Assistant Poetry Editor for Narrative Magazine and is currently pursuing her MFA in Cross-Genre Writing at University of California San Diego
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  • Who we are
    • In Support of Black Lives and Voices: How You Can Help
    • Book Reviews
    • Love Yourshelf
    • Reading Night 2019
  • Submit
  • Issues
    • Volume 1
    • Volume 2 >
      • Featured Artist_Mia
    • Tales From Six Feet Apart >
      • Featured Artist_Ariane
    • Volume 3 >
      • Featured Artist_Jiesha
  • Online Publication
  • Editing Service
  • Store
  • Subscribe
  • More
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