Fox Hollow Ravine by Dorothy Nielsen One spring among old fallen leaves we found the purple trillium we always seek in early May along the snaking creek at our old haunt – this bluff we’re skidding down, uncertain what we’ll meet on stony ground. It seems we never know from week to week or year to year what waits in the oblique, deep shadowed valley. Memories of the sound those days our son went flying down this hill for tadpoles? Or an echo flitting from the greening leaves: a girl’s soft laughter starts and stops – so does my pulse – till all is still where we had found the purple trillium, and once bore ashes for the bleeding hearts.
Dorothy Nielsen’s essays, fiction, and poems appear in many books and journals, including The Literary Review of Canada, Contemporary Literature, Canadian Poetry, Christianity and Literature, The Fiddlehead, and Traces Journal. She writes in a variety of free verse and traditional forms; most recently, her alliterative verse poem about the presentation of Christ in the temple was published by Forgotten Ground Regained. Dorothy serves on the advisory board for Traces Journal.
