Psalm by Mark Tretin

PSALM

The stammer of the crow is me.
The stilted stream is me.
The stinkweed fouling the roots of the sycamore is me.
So here I stand, sick, among blue flowers.
Yet the palest daisies yield honey;
they move the twinning winds.
A shepherd’s pipe fifes;
silver tones are big red
falling apples.
I am fallen and have come away
from the source of sweet waters.
Long grains bow their heads.
A wind stills itself, as one reed
dips down and sets off
an exultation of circles
that touch the marshy shore
as a heron slowly lands
and scatters the minnows

---

about the author:

My writing has been published or is forthcoming in Bayou Magazine, Burningword Literary Journal, Caliban Online, Common Ground Review, Crack the Spine, Diverse Voices Quarterly, Faultline, The Griffin, Lullwater Review, The Massachusetts Review, Moon City Review, The New York Quarterly, The Painted Bride, Paperstream, The Penmen Review, Pennsylvania English, The Saint Ann’s Review, The Round, Spoon River Poetry Review, Whistling Shade, Ghost Town Literary Magazine, Qwerty Magazine, and Willow Review, and I was the second runner-up for the Solstice literary magazine poetry prize in 2013. I am the 2015 winner of the Audrey Wasson and Carol Leseure Scholarship in Poetry. My poetry collection Pink Mattress will be published by New York Quarterly Press in 2016.