DEVOTION

by Victor Basta

On both sides of the flooded river,
when the rain ends a great song flourishes.
River grass ruffles the moorhens
awake, while wind inches dryness down
the drowned fence posts. Clouds paste
a film over the sunken common
where orphan birches tuft leaves
above the receding surface.

And so from grief
begins a long tenderness. Skylarks sing
their songs of the dead. Nothing will stop them.
Between the birches, damage is free to float
somewhere just as cold. Around their roots
learning to stay, silt can sift unseen
wherever the sun lures. Devotion
is hardest not to the dry world
we remember, but to this long tenderness
no one can promise will stay.

Born and raised in Cairo, Egypt, Victor Basta emigrated to the United States with his parents when he was eight and has lived between the US and UK. Now based in NY, his day job is as an investment banker helping tech companies raise money and do M&A deals. He has recently been published in Scoundrel Time, Zocalo Public Square, The Spoon River Poetry Review, The Euphony Journal, The Cumberland River Review, Nixes Mate, Indolent Books and featured in the Grub Street Annual Review among others. He holds an MFA from Warren Wilson and serves on the Board of Directors of Four Way Books in NY.