Locust tree etches the sky –
lime green pooling into blue.
Bumble bees have begun to lumber
over winter’s parched, crumbling remains.
These are the days when dawn shimmers,
North Star singing away the night.
A robin chirps from the brush line,
and bluebird ripostes, rusty breast swelling.
Dew pearls grass, irises spearing the earth.
Where do we go from here?
A line of spider web shivers in the breeze.
Ants march the porch railings.
I am frozen in yesterday’s words,
morning light on your empty chair.

—

KB Ballentine’s work has appeared in numerous journals and publications. A finalist for the 2014 Ron Rash Poetry Award, she was also a 2006 finalist for the Joy Harjo Poetry Award and was awarded the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize in 2006 and 2007.  Fragments of Light(2009) and Gathering Stones (2008) were published by Celtic Cat Publishing. Her third collection, What Comes of Waiting, won the 2013 Blue Light Press Book Award.