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The Fleeting Things
Debbie K. Trantow

Picking raspberries or wildflowers from ditches
Demands attention to the feet, to fallen thin
Branches under vines, perhaps a startled snake.
Fingers must be gentle. The ripest fruit
Flicks off, falls to ground with the lightest brush.
Then there are the eyes. More to watch than red
Spheres, or the length and hue of bloom. Could be
A black and yellow butterfly floats up beside you.

Love also must be sent to the fleeting things.
Bite of insect, scratch of thorn, all small annoyances
Heal in the breeze, the touch of sun, the song
And chatter of the creatures. We must grasp these.

Winter’s cloak descends, buries us
Sooner that we think.

—
Debbie K. Trantow holds an MFA in Creative and Professional Writing from the University of Minnesota, where she won the 2001 Gesell Summer Writing Fellowship. Her chapbook Hearing Turtle’s Words was published by Spoon River Poetry Press. In addition, she’s been published in Gertrude, The North Coast Review, The Wisconsin Review, Gyroscope, Poem, and other literary magazines and journals.

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