Under the Broom Tree

Natalie Homer

• Publisher: Autumn House Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781938769993
• eBook ISBN: 9781637680001
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Poems that explore the wilderness in order to find rest and divine providence.
 
In the story of the prophet Elijah, he must flee his home, and, after an arduous journey, he arrives under a broom tree, where he prays for his own death. But in his sleep, he is touched by an angel who provides food and water. In this moment, the broom tree becomes a symbol for shelter in a barren landscape, a portent of hope and renewal.

Drawing inspiration from this tale, Natalie Homer's debut poetry collection is a trek through the wildernesses of the heart and of the natural world. Exploring the idea of divine providence, Homer finds seams of light opening between forlorn moments and locates, "Something to run a finger through, / something to shine in the ocher light." Within these narrow spaces, Homer explores themes of longing, home, family, and self-worth amidst the wondrous backdrop of the American West and the Rust Belt, while integrating a rich mythology of narrative, image, and association. The broom tree, offering the capacity for shade and respite, becomes a source of connection and an inspiration for the collection. It is an invitation to sink deep into the earth and self and feel the roots entwine.
 

II.

MY MOTHER SENT CARDS

I didn’t respond to.

I thought of her

sitting on a porch by herself,

or crouching low to take pictures of wildflowers

with a disposable camera.

I knew her handwriting the way you know a pet has been hit by a car.

The drive back home always took two days,

and I threw up with the stress of it

in a motel bathroom haunted by old smoke and cheap soap.

Disposable razors. Cold cream. Diet Coke.

Whenever she reached out to touch my hair I moved away.

As desert relaxed into evergreens

my sister and I looked forward to the exact bend

where the river ran through a rusted truck’s passenger window

and out the driver’s side.

I want to think of her as strong.

As someone who doesn’t need me.

We asked her Why doesn’t someone move it?

Why doesn’t someone take it away?

A HIDING PLACE, A SURPRISE

One always begins to forgive a place as soon as it’s left behind.

—Charles Dickens

The town was one part nuclear accident, one part prayer.

I haven’t forgiven it.

I want to say hate but that’s not what I mean.

I mean the feeling of seeing another treeless neighborhood

being sowed, fire hydrants first, where a pasture had been,

or August baptisms in the Snake River,

the believers coming up soaked and squinting like newborns.

I drove the same circuit of country road in the washed-out evenings.

The landmarks: a willow near the canal bridge,

a hobbit-style house set into a grassy hill,

irrigation sprinklers in a barley field.

Everything in me ached

for a different place, a different life.

Now, I think of this ceramic cowboy boot,

how the russet top lifted off to reveal

a hiding place my mother said, for jewelry or coins,

but right where the ball of the foot would be

was a black beetle, built-in, painted.

The first time I opened it she said Surprise.

Going home always felt like defeat—

the turbines in a ragged line, twirling their white batons

on the hills that looked like a dusty velvet painting.

They don’t look real my mom would insist.

You could lick your finger and smudge them away.

SUNFLOWERS IN THE MEDIAN

Everything is a union of one kind or another.

Foothills know this. Highways too.

In the median—wild sunflowers for miles.

Cheerful, unassuming. They are no one’s bouquet.

My dad and I try very hard to seem at ease

with each other. We comment on the bison

stampeding across the casino’s electric sign.

Pixilated, their clouded breath leads them

again and again over an imagined prairie.

Later I will make this drive every day,

memorize little landmarks: the row of cottonwoods,

the peaked shelter at the reservoir’s edge,

the water towers marking the reservation.

I will become so sick of the sagebrush,

the snow and the sun, an incessant blue sky,

that I’ll wilt to think of this place being home.

But today it’s a morning I’m not sorry to be awake for,

so that’s something. And no one mourns a coyote

with his russet head resting on the road’s shoulder.

Neither does the ditch fire elicit sympathy.

The sunflowers did not teach me this,

but their small faces look so cheerful

bouncing in the slipstream of traffic—

I will believe anything they say.

DIVINATION

Flies are in love with silence

the way a coyote loves a highway.

They resurrect in the windowsill,

the October sunlight a mouth of white

teeth. All bark and no bite.

A dowsing rod leads me to an open grave.

The dogs roll in the carcass,

shaved of skin overgrown with sage.

The veins have become vines,

no longer velvet, no longer shining.

Hooves harden to stone

and roll downhill.

The entrails keep quiet.

On the walk home

I look for Equuleus a little horse

a little scar

in the sky

but cannot find it.

23...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• I.
• II.
• III.
• Notes
• Acknowledgment
• About the Author