Sage Ravenwood

Beheaded Necks of Giants

The pictures of old growth trees in Fairy Creek 
cut down to room size stumps physically hurt.
Still ached days later, leaving me bruised. 
Every year on this day was that picture. 
I stayed up till midnight, a boxer 
readying to face her younger opponent. 
Brushing my teeth while staring blankly 
at the wall above the sink, avoiding eye contact 
with the mirror. Another line will etch my face, 
a few strands of hair a shade lighter. 
My eyes would tell the truth of a thing.
Still here. Spring and early summer would have 
added another light ring to a tree’s trunk. Darker 
rings like those under my eyes added in colder 
months. I flick the light switch and the room goes 
dark. In my mind’s eye, roots burrow deep into the
dregs of this darkness for limbs to hold. Tree 
trunks chain mauled stacked together in a mass 
grave hauled away on a logging rig. Stumps,
beheaded necks of giants littering the hillside.
A lifetime of I’m this old rings etched across
their surface. All the faces staring back from a 
shattered mirror, a bark ring for each reflection.
All the bad luck befalling mother trees 
with pulp more sentient than I. Limbs askew,
spread across a behemoth red cedar 
mattress, northern owl feathers 
blanketing my body. A bed of rage 
that can no longer reach the stars. 
Sunrise marked another year 
around the sun. After I have added 
more flesh rings to my life, who will fell me?
Chainsaw my will like Sitka Spruce or 
Douglas firs whose lifespan made no difference.
Fermented woodchips surrounding a rose bush 
inside a suburbia hellscape. My forest gone.
Misshapen ridged bark in the lines 
of my neck where life licked 
my skin like fire to a tree.
I am no felled giant.

You Will Never Be

Listen. I want to tell you a story 
from my great grandmother’s mouth
to my ears. There was once a boy 
who worked in the fields under a blazing sun; 
dirt baked into the back of his sunburned neck, 
crusted beneath his fingernails. No amount 
of scrubbing would lift the field from his body. 
As children do, they bullied him mercilessly. 
Wash your neck. You’re dirty. You Stink,
followed him down the halls. Until one year,
his classmates conspired to give him
a gift for Christmas.
His joy all too soon turned to grief.
They had given him a washcloth 
and a bar of soap. Chanting,
Go Wash, Go Wash, Go Wash;
the discarded wrapping fell to the floor 
forgotten. That was the last they would see 
of the farmhand as he raced from the room.
He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction 
of seeing his tears. In his anguish 
he hung himself that night.
After telling me this story, months later 
I raced home to show my great grandmother
a drawing of mine had won an award.
She smirked and pointed to the newspaper.
On the cover was a little girl my age whose 
paintings were showcased on the front page.
You will never be as good as her, she taunted.
Years later, I realized the boy who 
hung himself was in her class.

Sage Ravenwood is a deaf Cherokee woman residing in upstate NY with her two rescue dogs, Bjarki and Yazhi, and her one-eyed cat Max. She is an outspoken advocate against animal cruelty and domestic violence. Her work can be found in Glass Poetry - Poets Resist, The Temz Review, Contrary, trampset, Pittsburgh Poetry Journal, Pioneertown Literary, Grain, Sundress Press anthology – The Familiar Wild: On Dogs and Poetry, The Rumpus, Lit Quarterly, PØST, Massachusetts Review, Savant-Garde, ANMLY (Anomaly), River Mouth Review, Native Skin Lit, Santa Clara Review, The Normal School, Pinhole Poetry, UCity Review, Punk Noir, Janus Literary, Jelly Bucket, Pangyrus, PRISM International, and more forthcoming.