Nettle Tea Poem by Leo Yankevich

On the black river's shore a nettle
prospers in the bracken shade.
The underside of the iron bridge
spans both the water and the glade.
Rusty as a pipe or kettle,
ghost trains traverse rails to a ridge

where folks set in their ways age cheese,
keg beer and eat perpetual stew.
The milk and malt stored in wood vats,
the deep bowls of brown broth and rue,
the honey and the combs of bees,
are guarded by a glare of cats,

and, in a cup, brews nettle tea,
hot, medicinal, with a cloud
of steam baptizing the high ceiling,
while nightfall, like a tattered shroud,
embraces dew on the green lea,
a windowpane of stars and healing.