Judith Chalmer
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Certain Tracks

I don’t follow. They’re not even
traceable, not really, or not by me.

They crossed mine when I was lost
in cavernous need. I never stopped,

for instance, to ask what she was
seeing, knowing as she did so well

the unwelcome path to her death.
Now, there’s nothing to follow,

not my sister, not the root through
its darkness, not a mole at the knuckle

of the root, not a loon spluttered up
to the surface, choked with love

and a shining life pierced still for its chick.
A book recommends I ask myself how

I’m different after my loss. Which one?
I don’t remember a time that death

didn’t dangle it’s just over here,
its once you were loved, its why not

keep looking. I’ve counted to twenty
slowly. There is no one to be found.

Last night outside my window
a fox barked on and off for an hour,

arguing disbelief at the silent lift
of the owl. I don’t follow how we fall

from our lives, or maybe just float off
and a sadness hovers over that spot.

I can’t find the scent. I can’t find
the spot. I’ve forgotten the track.

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Judith Chalmer’s second book of poems is “Minnow” (Kelsay Books 2020). Her poems have been published in journals such as Lilith, Third Wednesday, Poetica, Amethyst Review, Image (forthcoming), and in anthologies such as, The Wonder of Small Things, How To Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope, Rewilding: Poems for the Environment, Queer Nature, and Roads Taken: Contemporary Vermont Poetry. She is co-translator of two books of haiku and tanka, “Red Fish Alphabet,” and “Deepening Snow,” with author, Michiko Oishi.