~ for Mark

From the farm’s back field the wind is rising
as we walk, holding hands, to cut our tree
in the crisp night air. The moon is rising

over the skeletal tips of branches, forking
into the gathering dark. We can see,
from the farm’s back field, the wind rising

by the way the old cedar moans, tossing
its now-black foliage, as if to shake free.
On this solstice night, the moon’s rising

arc holds Venus—glimmering and winking—
at celestial arms’ length. They’re married
above the farm’s back field—wind rising

as if to rush the inevitable coupling
of sickle and orb, a brilliant zenith
of this longest night. The moon is rising

higher. Now we can see the tree, leaning
crookedly, our Yule pine, its shadow spindly
in the moon’s silver light.  Night has risen
over the farm’s back field. The wind still rises.

—

Lynda Fleet Perry is the author of a chapbook of poems, At Winter Light Farm, published by Finishing Line Press in 2011. Her work has been published in Blackbird, Defunct, qarrtsiluni, New Zoo Poetry Review, and other journals. She received her MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2014. She lives in Richmond, Virginia, with her husband and daughter, and works as a writer and communications manager for a botanical garden.