Poem of the Month

National Poetry Month, Day 14

Submitted by Mark Cox

I saw her through the prism of winter
In the dawn slivers of ice coated branches
In a dust of clear crystals swept skyward by God’s breath
In spectral glacial mists dancing through a ray

In the luminescent glint of glistening frosts
In twinkling drifts between cattails and river sedge
In dangling droplets from icicles beneath sheer cliffs
In a majestic frozen weave of nested emerald moss

Perhaps she flew but once, around a silver moon
glomming iridescent halo dust into a palm
Perhaps she puffed and rainbow detritus was strewn
Upon the mountains while the earth was calm

She is wind across red bee-balm, and Indian paintbrush
She is the orange firelight of Turks- cap and the flame azalea
She is sun bounced from lady slippers and yellow Jessamine
She is rain taps upon the greenbriar and striped maple
She is the dew- mist on wild chicory and Virginia bluebells
She is the healer in wild indigo and Curtiss milkwort
She is the scent of wild rhododendron and the blazing star

A vernal maiden has kissed my mountain
But I saw her first through the prism of winter.

–Mark Cox