"Hanging Lichen" by Stephen Barile

The sky comes down
To the edge of bare rock 
And all around
Filled with weather: 
Clouds, cool breezes,
Soaring birds. 

At the edge of a U-shaped canyon,
A stone amphitheater;
Sheer, sculpted cliffs
From a curved ridge of debris,
Towering over a broad lumbered valley
And miscellany of boulders. 

In the magic of bracken, grass and water,
Hidden in woods dense and dark,
Ponderosa, Lodgepole pines, Douglas fir,
Dead-wood and downed-timber, 
Tree-hanging lichen flourishes. 

Tangled masses of green threads,
Long drapes--yellow to ochre
Wrought from coyote hair.
The burial ground of the first people
A sanctuary of bones. 

Whirlwinds follow gusty squalls
Funnel in thunderstorms
And fire from lightning strikes. 

The resulting conflagration
Burns until the mourning ends

so the dead may sleep undisturbed

As winter storms
And summer droughts
Wash over the forest like a sea.

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Stephen Barile, a Fresno, California native, was educated in public schools, and attended Fresno City College, Fresno Pacific University, and California State University, Fresno. He is the former chairman of the William Saroyan Society, and a long-time member of the Fresno Poet’s Association. Mr. Barile taught writing at Madera Center Community College, lives and writes in Fresno. His poems have been published extensively, including Metafore Magazine, New Plains Review, The Heartland Review, Rio Grande Review, The Packinghouse Review, Undercurrents, The Broad River Review, The San Joaquin Review, Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, Beginnings, Pharos, and Flies, Cockroaches, and Poets.

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