John Swain- Three Poems

Temple Ridge

When the hawk struck the ground

a bounding deer ran from the field

in its place.

The crowned girl on the scarred birch

lifted like tall grass through snow

beside the river eddy.

Up the hill a man dressed as me

nodded without speaking

then turned his shadow back to the road.

Twilight of rifle fire,

grey colors sounded the empty vast

beyond temple ridge.

I climbed from the gorge’s throat

in the body of a horse

at the sign of the deepening water.

Before the Dark

Wild turkey and coyote tracks weave a path

through the forest snow

to the witch tree carved with marks

as red brush thrust up through the white earth. 

Listening to the river deep blue

beneath the slate cliffs,

I counted grey hours fading through prayer,

the sky mirrored these void colors.

The blue river deep rushing over grey rocks

and the snow on the hill speaks

a dirge for the slain carried away 

to become a fertile ground.

The feeding creek struggled up from the ice

steaming naked to change in the cold air

for a grimoire bell

as the moon raised herself before the dark.

Cemetery Island

Under the blue shroud 

I am going to row

the tidal water 

around cemetery island.

The osprey flies

for Elizabeth Caroline,

I scraped the salt

with a blade

from the oarlock,

her loving heart to turn.

Fire in the trees

beyond the waves

kept this wilderness

alive in a handwriting.

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