List Poem Life’s Thread: In An Instant

A poem and art of a life in Ouachita—from dawn to dusk in one breath.

A raw cry, splitting the dawn's dogwood hush by Caney Creek.
Blood cells, thumping, weaving life in red-dirt threads.
A sapling, quivering, clawing toward the Ouachita peak's Sun.
Boot steps, stubborn, kicking shale on Rich Mountain's spine.
A heart, pounding, hunting stars from a ridge's windswept grit.
Wrinkles, gouged deep, like old trails on a mountain face I've climbed.
A sigh, thin, ringing through twilight's endless glow.

—Noisy Wren, ‘25 {/linespace


Reflection ▼

"Life’s Thread: In An Instant" – A Reflection
This list poem and its paired artwork trace the arc of a life, from a cry at dawn to a sigh at twilight, through the rugged Ouachita landscape I call home. Each line is a memory carved from my walks along Caney Creek and Rich Mountain—places where I’ve felt the shale under my boots, the wind on a ridge’s edge, and the weight of time in the trails I’ve climbed. The visual, with its swirling layers, mirrors the fleeting yet eternal thread of life, tying my Arkansas roots to the universal. I wrote this to capture how a single instant holds a lifetime, hoping you’ll feel the heartbeat of the hills as I do. — The Noisy Wren, May 2025