Poetry by Julie Greenough

Do You Remember The Ash Trees

It was that forest.
Winter no
snow.
Tired sunlight, red fingertips, crackling footsteps,
the leaves.
Suspended bits of paper,
silver orange,
velvet backs.
They changed the       color
of that forest.
Proof 
these trees
were only sleeping.

It was that bug.
Emerald.
Taunting from the gravel,
glinting in the renewed
heat.
Just a beetle,
humming.
Floating away,
leaving
just unwanted       knowing.

It was you.
Beaming at the trees,
begging to know 
each name through your scarf.
Offering up 
clouds of steam 
in your dimpled pursuit.
You never asked,
which tree,
the winter leaves 
belong to.
You never
knew, 
there was       something
missing.
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Ash tree: a dying species of North American tree that does not shed its leaves in winter.




You Asked Me What It’s Like To Be The Oldest

Me and my brothers go 
raspberry picking in late June, 
the undergrowth beside the gravel road
thick and dark, full bodied trees
hiding hissing cicadas. We crunch 
our way up the hill, 
leaning over the ditch,
trying not to get pricked by the underside
of the leaves, or mistake an unripe blackberry.
The sun is too hot,
but we are satisfied by the plunk, 
the pink and red berries
filling our clear popcorn bowl. 
We never get far,
Aaron picks too fast, overlooking the ones that hide in the shade,
Ethan is diligent, but eats half of what he picks,
Asher never checks for bugs.
I am obsessed with perfect berries, I hold the bowl, 
playing quality control 
I discard the bad ones, the half eaten, the unripe, the ones with spiders.
We pick until we are sticky and sunburnt, and I snatch 
the bowl from their hungry fingers,
there’s plenty left on the bushes.
Today is the first day of June,
and I can’t tell you who holds the bowl,
or if they even still go.




Boyhood

Two boys make a fire,
wedged against the underbelly
of a cleft stone jutting from the sand.
I freeze, calculating age.
Rain settles against us as I watch them
staring back,
curly hair and hoodies,
they are young.
Each dismisses me, 
taking turns tending the flame,
driftwood for one,
cardboard for the other.
I pace between the ocean and the boys
deciding how much further to go,
but the tide is coming in
and I remember I am alone.
Turning back,
the flame peeks out from the rock,
smoke merging with the mist,
I squint for the shapes of strangers.
The rock fades back into the cliffs,
and I ache
for the boyhood I never had,
to partake in the coming and goings of the unafraid.

​

Julie Greenough is a an Appalachian poet finishing her undergraduate degree at Virginia Tech. Her poetry has appeared in Heartwood, and The Broke Bohemian.

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