John Swain- A Poem

Beneath the Snow

Thunder beneath the snow

breaks the silence of the world.

The wind impresses a sign

on each dead leaf turned white

like an ancient divination

the last man scraped on bone

to live the will of earth.

The heat of the hawk steams

in a tree

like a raging torch fire

for my darkening way.

I pressed the hollowed branch 

with a thorn to my hands,

I heard the sky open in flight

for its own protection from us,

like the birth of a foal 

I am empty as this grey field 

lying still in my throat unsung.

John Swain lives in Louisville, Kentucky. Least Bittern Books published his second collection, Under the Mountain Born.