John Linstrom: “A Fulfillment”
A FULFILLMENT
Candles flicker, the tree glows,
and somewhere, the proud, scattered
in the thoughts of their hearts, think
of thrones and sacrifice. Candlelight
and treesmell, and here, the child
in your womb leaps, we say, for joy.
A pocket screen flashes another headline,
taillights slide red along the windowpane
among the scattered lights reflected
from the fragrant tree, and we,
we hold each other. We grip friends’ shoulders
as they step inside and shake the chill,
and we sing, for the leaping sweet unborn,
the ancient song—cast down
the mighty, lift the low,
fill the hungry, and leave
for empty those rich whose scattered
thoughts are lost. We arrive
from far lands, but all of us, and every
one, share origins that are from of old,
from ancient days. In this flickering
room we prepare a body, and she
will someday step into this song’s night,
glow within a new tree’s light,
and the circle of the souls of old
will magnify her song.
Poems by John Linstrom have recently appeared in various literary journals, including North American Review, New Criterion, Atlanta Review, Commonweal Magazine, and Cold Mountain Review. Linstrom is a Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Climate and Inequality at The Climate Museum in New York City, and he is also the series editor of The Liberty Hyde Bailey Library for Cornell University Press, making available the works of environmental philosopher L. H. Bailey (1858-1954). His editions of Bailey’s works include The Nature-Study Idea (Cornell University Press, forthcoming), The Liberty Hyde Bailey Gardener’s Companion (Cornell University Press, 2019), and The Holy Earth (Counterpoint, 2015).