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CHOICES
by Tess Gallagher

I go to the mountain side
of the house to cut saplings,
and clear a view to snow
on the mountain. But when I look up,
saw in hand, I see a nest clutched in
the uppermost branches.
I don’t cut that one.
I don’t cut the others either.
Suddenly, in every tree,   
an unseen nest
where a mountain   
would be.

 Photo: Byota Art, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

“Choices” appears in MIDNIGHT LANTERN: New and Selected Poemsby Tess Gallagher (Graywolf Press, 2011)

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Tess Gallagher is a poet, essayist, and short story writer. She attended the University of Washington, where she studied creative writing with Theodore Roethke and later Nelson Bentley as well as David Wagoner and Mark Strand. Her honors include a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, two National Endowment for the Arts awards, the The Maxine Cushing Gray Endowed Libraries Visiting Writers Fellowship (University of Washington), and the Elliston Award for “best book of poetry published by a small press” for the collection Instructions to the Double (1976). (Read more at wikipedia.org.)