By vernal pools, spotted salamanders cling sticky footed
to moss covered stones. Wood ferns curl inward
in quiet repose like the tip of a mouse tail, wrapped
in a fetal position, under damp leaf litter.
My mother reads with the afternoon sun
folded about her shoulders in the liminal space
between a household of children and the silence afterwards.
Photograph by Alison Deland Scott
Smoky Quartz 