July 16, 2025
Poetry by Jennifer Karp
Elegy for Water Owl on Manzanita reservation
We think the grief will split us
but it sidles up,
a shaggy mane mushroom
pushing past cracked clay
in her yard.
Anna apples blister in the noon heat
at the base of the tree,
staining the soil,
its nectar drying on the chin
of a desert cottontail.
The flesh does count for something, she says,
nothing living falls without weight.
She touches the caps and soggy fruit
with her own rites to make them holy.
It’s not sin, she says.
The sun bursts behind the ridgeline again,
and for once,
we don’t demand a reason.
There’s logic
in the way the earth keeps raising
what it buries.
The way cactus blooms in shadow.
The way cholla thorns attach themselves to the living.
The way her tree blocks the heat.
Her name is an arroyo
carrying floodwaters
through our teeth,
taming jagged rocks
into soft, water-worn stone.