[Poetry] Two Poems by Sue Salt

Obsession

Like great tectonic plates

  our lives

crack together

Mountains of upheaval

  heat and friction

and the world shudders

softly or violently

  smoothing shining

implacable edges

Then quiet

  as one slides on

to another destination

and the landscape

  is never the same

The Autumn of my life

Autumn approaches

foretelling the direction

of my final harvest

The gathering of all past seasons

as memories blow through 

Am I done?

Have they left 

a smooth and virginal field

for my winters rest?

There will be no planting next spring

watching tender green turn to rich gold

There will be peace as the world naps

silently masquerading as nothingness

But the smallest deepest parts

know this isn’t true

This is the culmination

of everything I have become

It is my alpha and omega

The time for the unencumbered me

Sue Sesnon Salt is a fourth generation Californian. She is now retired and has the time to pursue her writing.  Her short essay "Calling my Muse" was recently published on the Brevity Blog. Her essay “On Not Belonging” has been accepted for the Winter 2025 issue of Persimmon Tree.