ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robert Okaji holds a BA in history, served without distinction in the U.S. Navy, toiled as a university administrator, and no longer owns a bookstore. His honors include the 2022 Slipstream Press Annual Chapbook Prize, the 2021 riverSedge Poetry Prize, and, at the age of nine, the Bar-K Ranch Goat-Catching Championship. He was recently diagnosed with late stage metastatic lung cancer, and lives, for the time being, in Indiana with his wife, stepson, and cat. His first full-length collection, Our Loveliest Bruises, will be published by 3: A Taos Press in the fall of 2024 (not posthumously, he hopes). His poems may be found in Book of Matches, Threepenny Review, Only Poems, Vox Populi, Shō Poetry Journal, The Big Windows Review, The Night Heron Barks, Indianapolis Review, and other venues.

As If We Understand the Tree

In swaying, it attracts.

But how to accept the thirst-moan,

too high in frequency for our ears,

yet more than mere wood

creaking in the wind,

or dessication's delicate song

of slow withdrawal.

I start my fire with paper

and lichen-covered 

twigs,

adding larger sticks,

and with adjustments 

to airflow, 

finally, 

logs.

The faint hiss pleases me.