Kevin McLellan

About Place Journal, Volume II Issue I
Trees

 
Prologue

They beat wet clothes
against rocks
as they stand naked
 
is repeated for one lifetime
 
*
 
A wave that is not water
yet the wind is wind
and its whistling impairs
 
the ears of birds
 
*
 
The long standing
folklore of loving
birdsong is what helps
 
them through night
 
*
 
Che sta andando tutto bene
(A son reached for a mother
who is not there)
 
Che sta andando tutto bene
(A son reaches
for a mother and she’s there)
 
Che sta andando tutto bene
(That a son will reach
and she’ll not be there)
 
That it is going to be okay
 
*
 
The whistling
The wet clothes
The music of again
 
And knowing that
not knowing (a tree grows
out of a featherbed)
 
follows
 
 
 
Kevin McLellan is the author of the chapbook Round Trip (Seven Kitchens, 2010), a collaborative series of poems with numerous women poets. He has recent or forthcoming poems in journals including: American Letters & Commentary, Barrow Street, Colorado Review, Horse Less Review, Kenyon Review Online, Sixth Finch, Western Humanities Review, Witness and numerous others. Kevin lives in Cambridge MA, and sometimes teaches poetry workshops at the University of Rhode Island in Providence.