in this spare forest windy accents are longing
to enter the mouths of the silent actors
to make mon: of this than a wooded matinee.
With these trees standing at moral attention
you can ask questions: Are these really The Wonder Years?
Or to vary a theme: Is the world a tenable place
to live, getting deeper into that deep
unimaginative feeling of being?
Just to forget the lame, the dumb, the poor, the breeding
et cetera, I take to the birches where I’m dumb-
founded by good fortune. The tourniquet
I put on that tree actually marks the point of no return.
I’ve really listened to those sentinels: Whatevcr you do,
they tell me, don’t walk in a straight line
or you’ll walk right out of the woods.
Here for a time,
and for you, there’s a nice-and-easy, a Friday
when leaves are coming and going to color on the floor
of the forest. \\’here they’ll come back to color.
Here, where every path leads you, there’s
a gold key by your feet that opens a golden door.
Nick Johnson
“Here,” Originally published in Poetry in Performance #37, Annual Spring Poetry Festival, The City College of New York, 15 May 2009, Edited by Lynn Dion, pp. 166-167.
Nicholas Johnson (1944-2019) and Maureen Holm (1951-2005) were the co-founders of BigCityLit.
Maureen Holm was a poet, novelist, editor, literary translator, arts lawyer, and senior essayist and articles editor for Big City Lit. She lived in Manhattan. Holm received her B.A. degree in German Literature & Philosophy, J.D. in 1981, an LL.M in 1991. She served as translator/editor for UNIDO, IIASA, Simmering Graz Pauker A.G., Kunsthistorisches Museum (Vienna). She translated the German Bankruptcy Code for the OECD, and was an interpreter for depositions, hearings, and trials. Her commercial transactional and litigation practice focused on European licensors and manufacturers. She was a founder and co-producer of Lyric Recovery Festival at Carnegie Hall (a biannual of poetry-music).
Nicholas Johnson was the editor of BigCityLit. His chapbook, Degrees of Freedom, is available from Bright Hill Press. We encourage you to read our 20th Anniversary Issue, which is dedicated to Nicholas’ memory.