Jim Tilley

Jim Tilley (jimtilleypoetry.com) has published four full-length collections of poetry and a novel with Red Hen Press. His short memoir, The Elegant Solution, was published as a Ploughshares Solo. Five of his poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His most recent poetry collection, Ripples in the Fabric of the Universe: New & Selected Poems, was published in June 2024. His forthcoming collection, When Godot Arrived, will be published in August 2026.

A Forest of Cairns (POEM)

Ash trees marked for destruction with orange bands

around their trunks, the emerald ash borer disease

having run rampant. Orange markers, not yellow

armbands or stars. A war not against a race, but trees,

their healthy heartwood fed into shredders, not ovens;

wood chips, not ashes, the residue. The tree fellers

leave a stump two to three feet high to the top of which

people lift and place heavy stones as cairns to identify

the forced sacrifices of the diseased for the sake of

the still-healthy, a form of art, too, this rock-and-tree

togetherness, memorials to the fallen and monuments

to nature. On walks, I often rest on the stumps not yet

crowned with a stone, contemplate those that have been,

sorrowful that human nature has run amok yet again,

but filled with hope knowing that there are good folk

erecting obelisks to others than themselves.