Trees at Dusk
POETRY
by Triin Paja
I listened to the forest
which was not
a forest. snow,
yellow
like the yellowed lace curtains
of childhood.
weeds thinned to a murmur.
a black woodpecker trembled
after the logging—
how to make a nest in the sky?
we harvest
the sea, the air.
we harvest
as if we are famished
but you have steeped yourself
in the fragrances
of our markets and windowsills
and know our pretense.
you alight upon
the train’s whistle:
a sound so deep it reaches,
with its dark hand,
into the earth.
moose tracks
spell further laments.
my grief ought to be green.
I ought to hear when
a fox barks
wearily
telling us to leave, telling us
here there is nothing to hurt you,
nothing for you to love.
Triin Paja lives in a small village in rural Estonia. She is the author of three collections of poetry in Estonian and a recipient of the Värske Rõhk Poetry Award, the Betti Alver Literary Award, and the Juhan Liiv Prize for Poetry. Her English poetry has received two Pushcart Prizes and has appeared in TriQuarterly, Colorado Review, Rattle, Poetry Ireland Review, and elsewhere. Three of her poems are forthcoming in Poetry Magazine. Paja’s chapbook, Sleeping in a Field, won the Wolfson Poetry Chapbook Prize. It is forthcoming from Wolfson Press in 2024.
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