Michael Knox

NORTHERN EARTH

You are the northern earth
Sparing and tough, all shoots
And moss and slender trees
Hardened in a still violence;
And ever so watchful.

Unfarmable;
An inspiring austerity
That can be traveled
And learned but
Never made home.

That thick plate beneath;
Ten fathoms of stone,
But below that, soft earth
That may go down forever.

Michael Knox is a writer and graduate student from Toronto. His work has previously appeared in Mcsweeney's, Ygdrasil Journal of the Poetic Arts, Another Toronto Quarterly, Pottersfield Portfolio, and The Breath Magazine, with work forthcoming in Subtle Tea and Ligature.