Poetry |

“Story Time in Shestakove” & “For the Poets”

Story Time in Shestakove

a village in Kharkiv Oblast, eastern Ukraine

 

 

Small groups of children gather

in the colors

of song and tattered flags.

 

The young woman’s voice a path

they know to follow

into the hills.

 

Across the trellis of fresh-turned fields

chains of smoke

suddenly bud.

 

The rearing horse, the rider

turning in his silver armor

for a last look.

 

A flame ascends the tower

up the long plea

of the braid.

 

Today’s tale is over.

He sheds his gloves

finger by finger.

 

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

 

For the Poets

 

 

You are reeling fish

out of the air

 

whether you are willing

or not

 

You keep doing it

 

It is appeasement

 

It is not helping much

 

Any

 

But

as the acorn is the oak’s fortress

 

as the egg is the descent

the bird makes

seeking to rise

 

though there are no fish

 

you know they are there

Contributor
Ralph Culver

Ralph Culver‘s most recent collection is A Passable Man (MadHat, 2021). This to This is forthcoming in 2024. New poems in Plume, Poem Alone, Modern Literature, Queen’s Quarterly (Canada), Silver Birch Press, and The High Window (UK). He divides his time between Vermont and central Pennsylvania.

Posted in Poetry

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