print previewback BARBARA DUFFEY
Shelterbelt
The mind does not self-shelter,
weaponless in a ring of
coal-dark heaven housing a
box of ice, or else no one
polices the relentless
train of the summer sun, its
needling poison. Here, I
say, is progress: an end to
grief in the sightline. The storm’s
rough reel stalls at my land’s
margins; I train that wolf, wind,
to wrap around my smooth black
sky, my home’s superstructure,
with rows of trees snow-watered:
the sumac, fall-red still, flames
against juniper’s dog-strong
green, its anchor to the elms’
yellow screen. We slipped saplings
from the flood plain of the Jim
River, planted them along
our homestead lines as our soil
blew away from our land of
mammal warmth. There were also
psychological effects
of “treeless” country, which the
homesteaders found “unsettling.”
This is the time when we are
mortal and can enjoy that
pain, a field, ends—isn’t
unremitting heaven, yet. 
Italicized material is adapted from the Northern State University publication “Windbreaks: The New Prairie Forest” (1998).
Coffey Still
Shelterbelt