Kevin Casey's work is forthcoming or has recently appeared in decomP, Paper Nautilus, Rust + Moth, San Pedro River Review, and other publications. His new chapbook “The wind considers everything --” was recently published by Flutter Press, and another from Red Dashboard is due out later this year. For more, visit his website, here. ---------
A Sunrise in Early Spring
Shadows glow pallid where the slanted light
allows the frost to idle. Peering into
the cupped hands of the vale, the sun shows
a lone beech straggling in the yard,
left by the others of its congregation
that mill their way through the final shoals
of snow up the hill behind the farm.
And at the end of its lowest branch,
And at the end of its lowest branch,
a single leaf has somehow endured
these scalding gales and sleet-whipped nights --
curled to a cocoon, empty and rolled
in its ochre ribs to a tapered scroll.
The horses are silent, steaming in their paddock
while the sun makes the valley wait, lingering
on this false chrysalis, lifting its mantle
of frost to mist to see what might emerge,
to learn what was held so dear
to have been carried all this way.