On Pastured Ridge, I Watch Kanawha Sky and Listen as Life Erupts
by John Timothy Robinson


A narrow band of sun-white space
glows beneath titanium walls of Western cloud.
One star flares in opened East,
a shattered speck of quartz.

The day-lit ridges roll in muted, green undulations.
Oaks are solemn shades in dusk.

Slowly, sounds mingle all around;
rigs moan the distance on Route Thirty-Five,
faint voices rise through evening air,
kids in someone’s yard a quarter mile away.
Wood Hens call,
a Cessna recedes to Cumulo-nimbus deep.

Ghostlike, I stagger home.
Barred Owls call forth in darkened air.
A single lightning bug bores from the ground.






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