Daisy Bassen
In Wales, They Are Singing in the Mountains
I’m very busy.
I’m waiting for my nightmare
And so I am watching the crows
On the grass, shadows and shadows,
I am stocking the pantry with inviolables.
You could see it all on my face
If you looked; there are no masks
To be had for all that we are
Garment-workers again in our kitchens,
Crowded together, breathing
The same tumbling air we fear.
I’m very busy, about to run
A one-room schoolhouse,
A clinic, a studio, a sanctuary
And I can’t hurry up or slow down;
Time is made of numbers
And you can’t eat them.
No one alive has ever lived in this world before.
Our advice comes only from the dead.
Descants from the grey hills.
—Submitted on March 23, 2020
Daisy Bassen ‘s poems have appeared in Oberon, The Delmarva Review, The Sow’s Ear, and PANK, among other journals, as well as in The Dreamers Anthology: Writing Inspired by the Lives of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Anne Frank (Social Justice Anthologies, 2019), edited by by . A practicing physician, Bassen lives in Rhode Island with her family.
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