Raymond Byrnes managed communications for many years for the U.S. Geological Survey/NASA Landsat satellite program. His recent poems have appeared in Third Wednesday, Shot Glass Journal, Panoply, Typishly, Waters Deep: A Great Lakes Poetry Anthology, and elsewhere. He lives in Virginia.
Locust
That locust on the hill
the one nearly wide
as tall, waves a thousand
moss-green feathers
each one a hundred leaves.
Every feather sways in rhythm
with the wind, but not like
frantic pom-poms shaken
at the game; more like how
Aretha’s boa shimmied
when she took her bows.