John Swain- Three Poems

The River Sang

The moon in urn

between your breasts

hangs a casting amulet.

I seized for breath

when I threw myself

into the pool

of blue snow melt

on the mountain

in the darkness

of a silent brown owl.

The sky is patient

with the grief of leaving

the whole we destroy.

The river of fish

sang with one voice,

I heard you speak

painting the trees

until we wake in the grace

of a cloud fire.

A white deer sprang

from the jawbone

in my hand

then disappeared

into clear water.

The Turning Hawk

With lightning in my eyes

I watched the turning red hawk turn white

against the winter trees.

The sleeping earth wakes in crystal lines

as the river shatters ice

moving to flood the oak bottomland forest.

My chapped lips groaned to hold the sun

in a maiden song dawn

until the passing hours took its antler shine.

Deep in the snow like a sky of nix roses,

I remained in the blinding white, drowned

with a brook horse riding.

Then the mirror fields flow 

into a grey palace for our desired privacies,

the ring of your world floats like a candle.

Sycamore Field

In the center of a field

one sycamore spread

from her breasts

under the curved horn

of white branches

toward the darkness

of the horizon forest,

the seer is a woman.

I crossed the depth

of untouched snow

for the owl in the well

of this tree’s mouth,

the clipping winds

filled with glass

to speak the meaning

of the hollow within.

In the winter evening,

she lives her body

under tarot blue robes

for a fire

burning our histories

in a cleansing incense

to the seekers

of her unending heart.

John Swain lives in Louisville, Kentucky. Red Paint Hill published his first collection, Ring the Sycamore Sky.