Chase Twichell is the author of numerous poetry collections, including Things as It Is; The Snow Watcher, winner of the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America; and Horses Where the Answers Should Have Been, winner of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. After teaching for many years she founded Ausable Press, a publisher of contemporary poetry. She splits her time between Saratoga Springs, New York, and the Adirondacks.

The New Dark Ages and Other Poems

by Chase Twichell


The New Dark Ages

Thunderstorms stir me up—
the stillness right before

the first close tremor,
the pond shivering


at the height of summer,
the field full-blown, going to seed.


But this storm scares me.
A foreign climate occupies the land.


When nature was God, in my childhood,
I was not afraid. Snow buried the town.


The river flooded it.
Lightning set the woods on fire.


In months the damage bandaged itself
with mosses and ferns, or got rebuilt.


This storm comes from another part
of the world, here by mistake,


its rain blistering the birch leaves.
Has it been weaponized?


No one knows what to expect
of a storm with human parents.
People on couch
To continue reading please sign in.
Join for free
Already a reader? Sign In