Kentucky Palisades

by John Swain

Below the cedars
on the palisade face
one white tree
grew from the creek
cascading slate terraces
to the flood river.
Ferns and antlers
emerged from the thaw
green to the spring
catching the new light
to become pure
as a girl in the sun.
I age in the weathering
as the river and falls
fill the gorge
one day forever
before she tires
of the bell sound.

Goats

by John Swain

After the goats
wandered the forest
in the moon pooled
all luminous
on the sick girl.
I scraped her neck
with a dog fang
and dusted her face
with clay powder.
Then her spirit
turned
like a cure
and I drove a peg
into the ground.
She only came back
to go away.

Scattering of Migrations

by John Swain

Scattering of migrations,
blue movements flood
as every bird becomes the sky
and every fish becomes the wave.
We rain
into the unceasing horizon
where sunset halves the world
in silhouette of man and woman.