The Sound of Breathing
Labyrinths are everywhere – meditations
in stone or wood, enigmas from the past
like the Isle of Skye’s Fairy Glen
or Maui’s sandy Makaluapuna Point.
Intricate sketches like the petroglyphs
in Cornwall’s Rocky Valley have become
a calming fashion: trace your pen or finger
around the circuit. Find your way through.
I see those who rebel and rush straight
for the sighted center, but there’s no medal
for getting to the middle. Not a maze or puzzle,
this passage involves our inmost thoughts:
sliding into the mud, ooze and muck slathering
bruises and cuts. Applauding poppies flourishing
from graves. It’s the journey inside and the opening.
It’s the listening.
Unsay the World
Pink moon sings
the curfew of March,
robins dimpling the yard
as I head to work. Grim, gray
city freezing, spring shrouded
and haunting our thoughts.
Snow slush piled beside streets
and signs create a wall
of ice, resistance snagging
salt and rain: shrinking,
but not fast enough.
If we could transplant
these slabs to the stars,
is space cold enough
they would survive forever?
Or would starlight melt
them so fast there’s no time
to grow a rose?
What if the moon howls
itself into oblivion?
Constellations dim and die?
Would we still dream in a dark so dark?
Dare even to close our eyes?
Images: Spring
Big Soddy Gulch
River rushing across the rock, rounding bends
crashing from mountain to coves,
waterfalls spray the trail (my ankles)
trios of trees, pine and poplar, lean into the river
sun plays hide-n-seek, clouds chasing the sky
redbuds swarming with bees
sour gum’s feathery shadows over stony banks
swallowtails kissing the surface and rising again
Do I want to race with the water? Be cleansed
with an icy reminder beauty can be deadly?
What about the sky – pursuing blue and white?
Would I want to be there? Or inside the redbud
with the honeybee? Explore the sweet scent
of a purple room in full bloom.
KB Ballentine’s eighth collection, Spirit of Wild, launched in March with Blue Light Press. Her earlier books can be found with Iris Press, Blue Light Press, Middle Creek Publishing, and Celtic Cat Publishing. Published in North Dakota Quarterly, Atlanta Review and Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, and others, her work also appears in anthologies including I Heard a Cardinal Sing (2022), The Strategic Poet (2021), Pandemic Evolution (2021), and Carrying the Branch: Poets in Search of Peace (2017). Learn more at www.kbballentine.com.
Labyrinths are everywhere – meditations
in stone or wood, enigmas from the past
like the Isle of Skye’s Fairy Glen
or Maui’s sandy Makaluapuna Point.
Intricate sketches like the petroglyphs
in Cornwall’s Rocky Valley have become
a calming fashion: trace your pen or finger
around the circuit. Find your way through.
I see those who rebel and rush straight
for the sighted center, but there’s no medal
for getting to the middle. Not a maze or puzzle,
this passage involves our inmost thoughts:
sliding into the mud, ooze and muck slathering
bruises and cuts. Applauding poppies flourishing
from graves. It’s the journey inside and the opening.
It’s the listening.
Unsay the World
Pink moon sings
the curfew of March,
robins dimpling the yard
as I head to work. Grim, gray
city freezing, spring shrouded
and haunting our thoughts.
Snow slush piled beside streets
and signs create a wall
of ice, resistance snagging
salt and rain: shrinking,
but not fast enough.
If we could transplant
these slabs to the stars,
is space cold enough
they would survive forever?
Or would starlight melt
them so fast there’s no time
to grow a rose?
What if the moon howls
itself into oblivion?
Constellations dim and die?
Would we still dream in a dark so dark?
Dare even to close our eyes?
Images: Spring
Big Soddy Gulch
River rushing across the rock, rounding bends
crashing from mountain to coves,
waterfalls spray the trail (my ankles)
trios of trees, pine and poplar, lean into the river
sun plays hide-n-seek, clouds chasing the sky
redbuds swarming with bees
sour gum’s feathery shadows over stony banks
swallowtails kissing the surface and rising again
Do I want to race with the water? Be cleansed
with an icy reminder beauty can be deadly?
What about the sky – pursuing blue and white?
Would I want to be there? Or inside the redbud
with the honeybee? Explore the sweet scent
of a purple room in full bloom.
KB Ballentine’s eighth collection, Spirit of Wild, launched in March with Blue Light Press. Her earlier books can be found with Iris Press, Blue Light Press, Middle Creek Publishing, and Celtic Cat Publishing. Published in North Dakota Quarterly, Atlanta Review and Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, and others, her work also appears in anthologies including I Heard a Cardinal Sing (2022), The Strategic Poet (2021), Pandemic Evolution (2021), and Carrying the Branch: Poets in Search of Peace (2017). Learn more at www.kbballentine.com.
