Catching Up
(listen to the poem, read by the author)
Oh, Forest, it’s May, which means I can return
my fingers to your foliage.
We have lots of catching up to do.
Goodmorning, Cattails and Skunk Cabbage.
Wildberries, what color are you today?
Excuse me, Bedrock. Sorry, Schist.
Didn’t mean to hit you with my cane.
Ah, Rock Wall, my old friend!
How are you?
You’re feeling rough, as always.
Glad to see your cracks are still stuffed with leaves.
Mind if I sit?
Yes, my house plants are well.
The ivy says hello, too.
That’s good.
Thank you.
You know,
I’ve been waiting all winter to tell you
I finally taught myself to read.
Here. Feel.
This one is a sonnet.
It’s called braille.
No, the glaciers didn’t invent it.
But yes, you can call it our birthright.
I’m glad you understand.
Let me teach you more.
I’m sorry I couldn’t show you sooner.
It’s just… this knowledge only grows
on certain trees, so
I had to walk
very, very far
to feel the forest this way.
After all these decades, it came to me suddenly
with my fingers
deep in the grooves of Hemlocke’s bark.
I said, My god, we are both blind.
Every stone and stem and fungus—this whole forest…
We are all so alike:
even you and I are a family, so
I’d love if you called me your twin.
Sorry I couldn’t name you sooner.
Yes. I’m also grieving
the way we had no one to label our resemblance.
But I’m here for you now.
Thank god.
I love you.
I know.
Even the moss is blind.
Oh, yes. Praise our mother.
She is a master of her craft.
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About the Author
K.R. Rose is a blind poet and storyteller living in Boston, Massachusetts where she studied fiction writing and poetry at Emerson College. She finds inspiration in the unusual, and her love for nature and animals is often at the core of her work. More of her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Dulcet Literary Magazine, Scapegoat Review, Scavengers Literary Magazine, and others. When she’s not writing, Rose may be drawing, crafting, or collecting rocks from streams across New England.