The Wedding Ring

In my sleep
I search in deep woods;
I am with a woman whose fingers
reach deeply into the earth.

She wears no wedding ring
for she has lost it in the undergrowth.
Her other children have climbed trees
and are throwing scaldings from their nests.

As thunder mounts behind us,
trucks of cattle roar past,
their faces pressed close
to slats for air.

I see my mother, her hands
in wet dirt, searching,
searching for her ring among pine needles
and the blood of young birds.

Copyright © 2003 Joan McBreen All rights reserved
from Winter in the Eye
Salmon Poetry / Dufour Editions
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission