Air: But Thou Didst Not Leave His Soul In Hell

by Anne Babson

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For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” – Psalm 16:10

PCBs on the
Muddy bed of the Hudson
Lift out.  The shad feed.

Lake Placid’s acid
Rain pockmarks stones, then oddly
Disappears.  Where?  How?

Strip-mined Nevada
Mountains turn woody again
Overnight – jackpot!

The prairie overtakes old
Cornfields presaged only by
Crop circles Thursday.

The sequoia trees
Thicken like chest hair on a
Californian teen.

The Mississippi
Morning mist clears revealing
Drinkable water.

Birds, beasts, plants, insects
Diversify their holdings
In America.

Redemption looks like
A tree frog laying eggs in
The pitch-sticky swamp.


Anne Babson, a Coney Island poet recently transplanted to Mississippi, was nominated for a Pushcart for work in The Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal and Illya’s Honey. She has won awards from Columbia, Atlanta Review, Grasslands Review, and other reviews.  She has four chapbooks, over a hundred journal publications, and is featured on one compilation hip-hop CD– The Cornerstone (New Lew Music, 2007).   Catch her blog about her North-South culture shock at www.carpetbaggersjournal.wordpress.com.

Anne Babson

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