qarrtsiluni

by Rick Clark

In my veins, in my bones I feel it
—from “Cuttings (later),” with apologies to Theodore Roethke

The year is momentous,
I have checked the calendar:
Twenty-one years old, and thus
I look back on a life that meanders,
Ebbs away from me, like rain running off
Of rough roofs, to be muddily lost
Amidst an epoch of tender learning;
I grow old while still young, and yearning
For tokens signifying that I am now a man,
And better for it. Now, summer comes,
Bringing cicadas squirming past dams
Of ancient root and leaf and earth, from
Those palatial alcoves deep beneath my feet.
The wild things return, and sing, and sing
For just three new moons, and greet
The young as their time is ending.

Download the podcast

Rick Clark is a 29-year-old writer living in Fairfax, Virginia. He is a previous winner of the George Mason Review Prize for Poetry for the poem “Eight Crows,” and is in the process of (finally) finishing a degree in Creative Writing at George Mason University.