Poetry By Janette Schafer

Safa Hovinen CC




Crooked Trees


What if my mistakes were what brought me to here 
and now?
--Byron Hoot

The trees never apologize
for growing crooked,
for falling down
after a microburst.

They make way for
beams of light, flashes
of red and gold, trout lily
and wake-robin.

In the wake
of rotting logs,
spring ephemerals rise,
brambles of blackberry.

I look back 
on wreckage--
find grace
among mayapple

and wood poppy.




Janette Schafer is a poet, photographer, playwright, and realtor living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She holds an MFA in poetry from Chatham University. She is the author of three collections of poetry and the chief editor of two poetry anthologies. Her writing and photographs have appeared in numerous journals, newspapers, and websites, including Vox Populi, The Missouri Review, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Eunoia Review.  She is a winner of the Academy of American Poets Prize. 
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