The Dawn Spilling Over
THIS LIFE
by Blair Correll
It erupted within me
Like the dawn spilling over
Into my chest, filling me up
I broke on a half sob half laugh
With holy delight at what I saw
What I felt, what I had done
What I had yet to do, where I had been
Is this luck or fate or a blessing
By what thread of life or flap of the wing
Brought me here with more joy
Than I can possibly contain
I could cry out with it
This life, this life, this life!
—from our Dandelion Scribes poetry anthology,
Where the Old Stories Still Breathe
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
The Dawn Spilling Over—a joyous phrase that began as a line of poetry by Blair Correll, written in response to the cover image in the moments right after she captured it. That poem found its way into our first Dandelion Scribes print anthology, Where the Old Stories Still Breathe, featuring 25 of our poets with roots in eastern Kentucky & Tennessee. Now, “This Life” and 8 breathtaking photographs that reveal the heavenly beauty of our home in the hills have inspired an entire digital collection, in which 20 poets near & far responded to our call for submissions. We asked the poets to refer to Blair’s photographs (pictured below) as visual inspiration for poems about nature, seasons, light, growth, joy, and change. The result is a captivating collection of words & images that move through the seasons, from sunrises to sunsets, allowing us all to revel for a while in the feeling of dawn—spilling over the horizon and filling our hearts with clarity, comfort, and gratitude.
Featuring the following poets:
Frances Denise
Tanner Cooper-Risser
Joshua Walker
Angelia Ross
Joe Sedita
Mackenzie Laird
warbling treefrog
Logan Burden
Charles Thomas
Autumn Williams
Brandon Thorpe
Brandy Warren
Kristen Reid
Shirley Eden
Chris Boyatt
George Fillingham
Blair Correll
Dane Osborne
Kara Kemp
the dithyrambler
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
Photographs by Blair Correll
Q&A with poet & visual artist
Blair Correll
Question 1: Tell us a little about yourself: who you are, where you live.
My name is Blair Correll. I live in a small town in south central Kentucky called Glasgow. The entirety of my father’s family lives in Eastern Kentucky, so I have always felt as though I am an honorary member of that folksy culture even if I am not a geographical member. I am a painter and a writer in addition to dabbling in photography.
Question 2: How did you get started in photography?
I have always been taking pictures. I’m of that generation that grew up with a camera or phone in their hand. It’s a very natural thing for me to want to save and collect beautiful things that I see.
Question 3: What draws you to nature photography specifically?
I deal with an anxiety and panic disorder. This makes traveling exceedingly hard for me, but I’ve always longed for it. It took me years to be in the mindset that I am currently in where I can enjoy nature and life. So, I decided to discover the beauties in my backyard rather than sit on my phone feeling sorry for myself as I watched all my old high school/college peers travel the world. I feel immensely grateful to be in nature and to have the time to truly appreciate it.
Question 4: How does your photography inspire/inform your poetry?
To me, all art is an ode to nature, beauty, and the divine—even if it is expressly about the opposite. I think that creativity is an expression of gratefulness. When I take a photograph, write a poem, paint a picture, I am recognizing the place it has touched within me. I honor that by sharing it with the world—usually through poetry.
Question 5: How does the place you live influence your art, from poetry to photography, and any other forms?
Kentucky is so beautiful. I know from people who have moved here or who have moved back here that it is an exceptionally beautiful place. I feel very lucky to have lived my whole life here. I’m a sucker for rolling hills, hidden creeks, and nostalgic farmland. I want to capture it and share it. The sharing part is key. I don’t want to hoard all of this beauty. I need to get it out of me so someone else can feel the joy it can bring. So, that’s how it makes its way into my paintings, poetry, and photography. I have an addiction to sharing.
The Dawn
Spilling Over
HERE
after Blair Correll
Let the dawn spill over
And swallow me whole
Let me drop into my body
Let me know how it feels to stay in it
When the light arrives and touches my center
When it spreads to the edges
Threatening to stretch me beyond my skin
I am safe here, now
My heartbeat grows from sonnet to song
As I surrender control
To Earth's rhyme and rhythm
Let the dawn spill over
My anxious mind
My hardened heart
Show me what it means to exist in this light
Show me: what is my capacity for life?
Let the dawn spill over the valleys, the thick canopies
I want to swim in sunlight
I want to be part of everything seen and renewed
–Frances Denise
⚘
SUNRISE
The
Day
Begins
To arise
With the sun’s bright light.
I awake and walk out to find
My chickens and goats ready to start the day with me.
I breathe in the brisk morning air, filled with the energizing liquid that I just drank.
Let us begin our day together, awake to nourishment and love, ready to begin again as kin
Both human and non-human kind.
–Tanner Cooper-Risser
⚘
BEFORE THE WORLD CALLS IT ORDINARY
Someone has tipped morning
at the edge of the world.
It runs across the fields,
gold into gold,
filling every hollow
the night left behind.
The fence cannot stop it.
The trees cannot hold it.
Even the fog becomes luminous
while trying to disappear.
There are mornings when I believe
this is all eternity ever meant:
not endlessness,
but one impossible second
too beautiful to contain itself.
A sun breaking open.
A field receiving it.
A stranger standing somewhere
with cold hands
and no language large enough.
Soon there will be engines,
coffee, bills, sirens,
all the little machinery
we invented to make ourselves forget
we are animals beneath a burning star.
But not yet.
For one breath
the whole earth is overflowing,
and nothing has learned
to call itself ordinary.
–Joshua Walker, The Last Bard
⚘
AS IF THEY WERE
As the sun rises above the forest,
He paints the earth
In bright oranges and yellows,
While keeping the trees nearest Him
In deep shadows.
And thanks to a late spring frost,
The grass shimmers like crystal
As it crunches underfoot,
And a thin lacy fog covers the fields.
Yet, to the Northwest
A pair of towering corn silos
Can be seen standing watch,
As if they were King and Queen.
–Angelia Ross
⚘
MORNING PRAYER
Rain this morning
Now fog has arrived
matter-of-factly
to take its place
the translucent mist
settles quietly over
new spring growth
budding from still trees
like a prayer shawl
covers the shoulders
of an early morning petitioner
having a talk with God.
–Joe Sedita
⚘
PILOT LIGHT
Earth wears a halo, like my half-ass smile—
I told myself that this month I will pray
that I pay for the heat. But the coals won’t stay lit;
I sit and mourn the ashes. The carpet is my bed.
In the morning, hanging out on the ledge,
giving life to every room,
an aura being shed on my floor—like fur.
My cat turns on his back and stretches;
his coat is toasted and looks extra soft.
He reminds me of a snake, sunbathing on rocks.
So for those moments I pause.
Witching hour—I look up at the moon,
thanking the universe for the sun,
thinking about the small problems
that I make big; laughing at the monstrosity.
Like the time when the house was a cave
and I made a mess on my sweatshirt.
Then I look outside, earlier than usual.
I wake up at 5:55—
The clouds are painted pink.
I feel my soul knock on my head:
Hello, are you in there?
I nod.
The sun is the pilot light that stays.
–Mackenzie Laird
⚘
I walked down the hill to the river,
sweet scent of sheared grass ahead,
picking up turkey feathers as I went.
How like the dawn sky a turkey feather is —
blue tinge flickering in ink black,
as first light paints departing night,
white fluff gathered like rising mist,
and a golden band, morning’s rift.
I pinched the feathers in my fingers and carried them
to the river. Lately, I’ve felt like letting things go —
not a giving up, though —
for I once flung a line in the water and reeled in
something good, something wanted
and left another line in — fracture
in muddy current — for whatever comes along.
Maybe the coi, I thought, released
in the mirrored pool beneath the willow.
Instead, the river’s smooth flesh was torn,
droplets darkened dry shore,
a rupture that made my heart thud
in shock, then in something more.
It was all how I imagined you
stepping through the door.
I stuck the turkey feathers
in the dry soil beneath the big oak,
like some structure made by the ancients
to align with the morning sun
at just this time.
–warbling treefrog
⚘
THE SUN HAS NEVER ASKED PERMISSION
Morning breaks into the field
like it owns the goddamn place,
gold pouring over fence posts,
through the ribs of sleeping cattle,
across every blade bent beneath dew.
I wonder how many beautiful things
begin as an intrusion.
Birth.
Truth.
The phone ringing before breakfast
with the voice you already know
will divide your life into before and after.
Even light enters through wounds.
Look at those trees surrendering shadow,
one branch at a time,
the darkness dragged backward
without ceremony, without apology.
Maybe that is why we worship dawn.
Not because it promises anything,
but because after everything we have done
to ourselves in the night,
the sun still kicks down the door.
–Joshua Walker, The Last Bard
⚘
CHASING CIRCLES INTO SQUARES
The hiss of silence strings through me
Dare I disturb the repetition
How far can a vibration reach
Slicing through the rays of sun
Anchored to familiar thoughts
Floating through oblivion
Voiceless souls in the right shadows
Only my light to show me wrong
After more than those before me
Chasing circles into squares
Rounding the dull continual edge
Into sharp and deadly points
Fighting to stay afloat
While embracing the descent
Ascension in reverse to remain
Just as I am, and always will be
–Logan Burden
⚘
The final reign
lies there between trees
labeled a1a and g4z.
Observe how
they formerly formally bent
to the occasion of divine
decree.
According to sources
previous
no such bowing to
conjectured control
there was.
Sky spoke out
the day humans went out
for food. One did not return
alive.
Circle and cube.
Circle and cube.
Forfeited was
the weight of light
the release of dark
and love became
terror of grief
say the signs
that now lie in a heap.
Ending a Beginning
–Charles Thomas
⚘
IT WAS
Before I closed my eyes I told myself
to wake up in dreaming.
I didn't.
My unconscious mind knew
its coming dream was too pure
to move through knowing it wasn't real.
So for minutes or hours
it was real.
It was real and almost perfect, like the earth
when it's summer, and the grass
is soft under your feet,
and the too-hot sun burns your back,
and you stare at the faded daytime moon.
–Autumn Williams
⚘
INTO DEEP SLUMBER
In the pre-dawn hours,
The air is cool,
And a fog creeps in,
As a cricket by the front door
Sleepily chirps,
While the one by the back door,
Sounds as if he's had
Way too much caffeine.
And Jack the giant Silkie rooster
Sounds his four-fifteen alarm,
Right on the dot.
Then the stomach grumbles and growls
Until its owner slurps down
Some chicken and Alfredo noodles.
At 6AM it's back to bed.
The eyes quickly close once more
Into deep slumber.
–Angelia Ross
⚘
ROTTING ROCKS AND MOSS
Heat and Humidity bend the picture
and blur the edges of vision with smooth
pastel powder. It feels
like a contradictory combination
of alert stillness, where you couldn’t sleep,
but could lay all day being tossed
by waves of rhythmic wind lifting and laying
the way an ocean breaks.
Stirring fragments of
leaf, then dropping them still while you hear
building back up, more wind
rustling through the brush.
A little shockwave of temperature and smell,
mildew-air where it’s been so wet.
Like an oscillating fan during a daytime
nap. Even inside you can hear it blowing against
the house. Everything else oscillating too, the sun
dragging planets, you dragging the moon. Water vapor
falling with temperature and time, passing little
seeds and flying spiderlings floating back down, and
the lights fading in and out as the sun passes behind
a cloud.
Feelings float and fall, the wind guides in the
same subtle sting of mild sunny day depression.
A private yellow sadness, as it passes the synapses
slides across nostalgic recall and sets off a few sensors
on its way across. It’s the same feeling felt
when waking up on a couch as a kid
after a sleepover with a friend
to the sounds of their stranger parents
making coffee and watching TV shows you didn’t
know. Torn between wanting to ask for the phone
for a ride home, and not wanting them to know
you were awake.
So you laid still, and waited, watching
a little beam of sunlight crawl across the carpet
through a triangular gap
in your eyelashes.
The same sun blinking through the leaves strobing camera
flashes in green
By noon it’s so hot the birds stop singing
and you can only hear yourself
breathe. Then cools as the sun sets into the evening.
The earth steams like a
hot kitchen sponge and lifts grime into the cooling sky.
The water molecules will pass one another again, just
like this, and brush fingers on their ways past
like friends,
competing with temperature
and time, roiling up little
seeds and germs, boiling
the fragrant earth. We’re caught in it no matter what.
The plants know what to do, they twist towards the sun as tall
as their frail bodies will hold. And reach
as far as their arms will go. When we’re cooked enough
we’ll fall apart too, and mix back into the mossy air.
–Brandon Thorpe
⚘
LOUCHE
Lean caterpillar,
black, yellow, green,
she inches up sunburned,
pitchfork-prickly, brick wall
toward pot of young sage.
She cannot stay
where she hatched, matured,
on cool-shaded leaves
of fading mint and
juice-rich garlic chives,
she there to burgeon on
their known taste.
Not just to eat, to fatten,
to cocoon, to morph
drives her to show herself,
to risk her future with
perilous climb.
Open to pecks and
jabs and stabs, she drags herself
across Purgatory’s wall
to the brink of hell’s fire
for seductive gourmet nibbles.
–Brandy Warren
⚘
THE WORLD SANG TO US
Out for a run
with Dottie,
my black lab and
running companion
The low spot
at the bottom
of the hill is where
frogs look for love
making a sound—
a banjo being plucked
From the crown
of the trees
at the end
of the way,
birds performed
a dusk chorus
finishing
their day
We turned for home,
An oak yielded
to the freshening breeze,
stroked a pine
sang his love song
to her
Just the two of us
free of human static
Dottie slowed her pace,
turned her head to listen—
–Joe Sedita
⚘
THE SOARING EAGLE
Soaring high above the steeple
Of the First Baptist Church
On Main Street,
The Bald Eagle makes flying
Look utterly effortless.
No matter how many times
I have seen it.
But the thought of getting
To catch another glimpse of it,
Awakens my spirit
With pure joy and amazement.
–Angelia Ross
⚘
HEADING HOME
Lone coyote trotting
Tracks fresh dew with silent feet
Steals a sleepy yawn.
–Joe Sedita
⚘
MORE PLACES
I walk endless.
Wind circulates through my frame
for a moment, and again.
An unpaved path fills
a timer and spills its dirt in constants.
I arrive within
then.
The sky won't rest with me.
We experience exhaustion together.
It has more places,
and I wonder at them.
–Autumn Williams
⚘
BETWEEN THE STONES AND THE SKY
I follow a path paved in unexpecting curves —
nerves fried like worms
in the blistering sun,
longing for the salvation of wet dirt.
I’ve been them. I am them.
I try to find
the right way forward
that is carved into the earth.
Sun, call to me
through this dark canopy
of trees,
so that I might bask
in your stability and trust of hope!
Let your dawn spill over into my
heart —
that a new day rises from the dark
of night.
That I might
touch the wet dew of morning
between my toes.
That I might
sing and dance and throw
caution to the stifling wind
in the sunlit forest of repose.
Hear me,
Mother of Life,
of fauna,
that you might kiss me
with existence outside
of this path of stones I trod.
I wanna
live like the birds —
free to strive towards something calling them
henceforth —
to eat the scalded worms
for sustenance
and fly to that otherness
my soul seeks to find.
Leave the rocky path behind
on wings of hope
towards that place of rest for my mind.
Please, help me
to feel your warmth deep inside —
enough to keep me moving —
ticking along with your time.
–Kristen Reid
⚘
UNCERTAIN JOURNEY
Change lanes
Change the tunes
Trees wave gracefully
I’m speeding by
Angels watch intently.
I once read birds follow a magnetic path.
I try to follow them
I don’t know where I’m going yet
I only hope I know
When I’m there
–Shirley Eden
⚘
THE ROAD DOES NOT REMEMBER YOU
There is a road through the trees
that has outlived every argument
ever shouted inside a car.
Every goodbye at its shoulder.
Every hand reaching across the console.
Every father driving home slowly
because home had become
the harder destination.
Still, morning lays itself
across the asphalt,
bright and indifferent.
The trees lean inward
but never quite touch,
leaving one narrow wound of sky
for us to follow.
I used to think roads meant escape.
Then I thought they meant return.
Now I think a road
is simply the earth admitting
we are incapable of staying.
So go.
Let the rearview mirror
grow small with everything
that once believed it could keep you.
There is sunlight around the bend,
and for once,
you do not need to know
what comes after it.
–Joshua Walker, The Last Bard
⚘
THEIR JOURNEY HOME
The pasture's rolling hills
Are so lush and green
Beneath a partly cloudy sky,
And a breeze teases
The tall grass around
The legs of a flock of sheep
As they quietly graze,
Under the watchful eyes
Of the two black and white
Border Collies—Patches and Frodo.
Then when the sun begins
His descent into the west,
The shepherd whistles
Loud and sharp to let both
Sheep and dogs know
It's time for them
To begin their journey home.
–Angelia Ross
⚘
ROLLING HILLS
i grew up in the city
where square yards of grass sat side by side.
at school inside my books
were pictures of the countryside,
with rolling hills of
fresh cut hay
as beautiful as could be.
a place i longed to see.
now i live in the country.
it is my dream come true.
those new mown hills are my view
as i travel on my way.
where cows and horses
feast and dine
in rain or shine
every day.
I read in the Good Book
Psalm 50:10
For every beast of the forest
is mine
and the cattle
upon a thousand fields.
I love livin' in the country,
here in these rolling hills
just fine.
–Chris Boyatt
⚘
WINDING SLEEP
I was standing and glitched somehow,
onto a soft bench, at the back of the house.
The garden seemed too large to walk through,
and its scent lulled me to stillness.
Daylight became dusk in my dissociation.
The trees surrounding the grass and flowers
turned to motionless silhouettes.
Warm air brought sleep, and I dreamt of running
miles of winding garden paths.
I woke up, weakened,
with a fast-beating, uncommonly peaceful heart.
–Autumn Williams
⚘
WHAT GEORGIA SAW
I want to see what Georgia saw
painting giant flowers on the wall,
forcing casual glances deep within,
plunging the garden flower into humanity,
exposing to human eyes virginity.
Can’t look away! Must see!
That’s what art is supposed to be.
–George Fillingham
⚘
THERE ARE GODS SMALLER THAN US
A yellow flower opens
beside the road
with no congregation.
No stained glass.
No priest lifting anything holy
above his head.
No book explaining why suffering
must eventually make sense.
Just five small petals
holding sunlight
like they stole it.
I kneel because sometimes
the body understands worship
before the mind can ruin it.
All around us, creation is careless:
weeds splitting concrete,
moss swallowing gravestones,
birds building homes
from whatever the storm forgot.
Perhaps resurrection was never
supposed to be spectacular.
Perhaps it has always been this:
something tiny
coming back
where nobody thought to look.
–Joshua Walker, The Last Bard
⚘
BLOOMING
Those were careful seeds you dropped
Into my unwilling and stubborn soil
A million midnights ago in the pure dark
They’ve created little shoots finally sprouting
Soon there will be a bloom here and there
And we can sit and look at it together
Tracing its loveliness — its unabashed life
Still you speak in growing tongues of love
I have moons left to dance under and flower
I have all the world under my feet and forever
–Blair Correll
⚘
SPRINKLED COLORS
I walk inside with a bunch of wildflowers
from the field behind this abandoned house.
I lace them through the cracks in the walls.
I'm not sure how many trips I've taken
but it's almost finished.
The field sprinkled its colors all together,
and I do the same.
Yellow, and blue, and purple, and white tiny flowers,
and gray wood planks,
make the prettiest picture.
–Autumn Williams
⚘
ORANGE BEFORE DARK
I lean against a fence that keeps me out.
An open meadow, green before me
rolling away to the west.
The sun reluctantly descending toward horizon.
A row of clouds appears in hot pursuit
scolding the retreating sun. I am forbidden
to follow, kept like a prisoner. I gather
my memories, my energies, my prayers.
I put them in a pouch around my neck.
I turn back toward the east to wait
for yet another dawn. Considering my age,
the bronze of a rising sun is just as orange
as the amber before dark.
–George Fillingham
⚘
AT DAY’S END
The setting sun turns the grey clouds,
Above Oneida's town,
A beautiful shade of pink.
While a Cardinal sings
His final song of the day.
Then a tree frog begins
Chirruping his prediction of rain,
While a toad ribbits
In his two cents worth.
And a cricket plays a fast symphony,
As if his life depends on it.
Then a train blows
For the Dexter Laxton crossing,
While a couple of vehicles
Vroom up Dexter's hill.
At last darkness has fallen.
The Katydids have awakened
From their day’s slumber
To join all the creatures beforehand,
Bringing the night to life,
As the stars look on.
–Angelia Ross
⚘
MORE AWAKE THAN
In a dream I asked you what you thought
tomorrow would sound like—
a roaring waterfall, maybe singing,
perhaps lots of footsteps.
You laughed and said I was asleep,
and your amusement
made me feel
more awake than a ticking clock.
–Autumn Williams
⚘
HER FACE WILL SET US FREE
The face of the mother of God
Shall be seen on a day
Of blue sky and bright glowing lavender clouds
After all sanity dies
Among the callous population.
The trees are alive and feel pain
But we can't see it
Because we are all confused in the head
From secret electromagnetic radioactive waves
Which transmit through our atmosphere
And nobody even knows or understands
No matter what you say to them.
Her face will set us free.
Her face will set us free.
–Dane Osborne
⚘
PORTRAITS IN BECOMING:
NATURE AS MIRROR
Created during a 2022 hiking and nature poetry exploration at Adult Summer Camp in Historic Rugby, Tennessee, these poems use the natural world as a way of seeing the self more clearly. Through frog, grass, dew, heat, water, and the ancient rhythms of the gingko tree, I explore resilience, joy, rest, release, and renewal. Together, the poems suggest that we are never just one version of ourselves. We cartwheel through discomfort. We absorb heat and hope for cooler waters. We rest through winter, burst into color, offer shade to others, and eventually let go...only to begin the cycle again.
——
I. Self-Portrait at Ten-ish
Cartwheeling frog
Absorbing the temperature
Of each conversational boil.
Each turn
Invoking, inviting
and pleading for
Joy.
Pressing my fingers
Into dewy grass
Toes splayed optimistically upward.
Each pain withstood
Begins radiating
Releasing from my gut
Reaching out for release.
Returning upright
Eyes opening
Smile hoping
For cooler waters to come.
——
II. Self-Portrait as Gingko
Winter, I rest
Bare and holding
Reserving energy for
Spring’s awakening.
Leafing out to greet
The first cool dew drop
Kissing my chartreuse palm
A whispered high five
Amongst a symphony of cardinal calls.
My hue deepens
Through summer
Fanning my leaves
Nourishing my extrovert tendencies
And shading grateful passersby
With relief from steamy sun rays.
Fall begins the rehearsal
For the big show
As gold begins to
Tip each leaf and soaks through
In a flash of radiance.
Pop!
Surprising it’s frequent visitors
Sounding the revelry
And the ticker tape parade
For autumn to commence
And the next slumber til next spring.
–Kara Kemp
⚘
I COVER THE WATERFRONT
As a Boy Scout my troop was hiking
through the free land of permission
because our scoutmaster was a good guy.
The cold weather brought snow earlier that week.
Like a shawl it lay along the banks of a stream
about 8 feet wide but maybe 2 feet deep.
We took a break, set up a campsite, started a fire.
We broke out rations, meaning soup or chili with bread.
We took turns feeding the fire and feeding ourselves.
We used the stream water to wash our pots,
heating the water again by fire. We then restowed
our gear, hefted our now lighter packs
and followed the stream bank to where it might go.
We startled a couple of Wood Ducks
that thrashed out through the brush.
We laughed away our surprise and trekked on.
Along the way to my left I saw in the snowpack
a different track, a paw print, large enough
to mark the snow or the flesh, a large print, big as my fist.
I scanned the wider area across the stream more closely.
But I kept it to myself. We were only boys
out for a day hike anyway. Why be a serpent in winter’s garden.
–George Fillingham
⚘
INSTRUCTIONS FOR SURVIVING WINTER
The creek has learned the oldest trick:
keep moving beneath the ice.
Above it, the trees stand naked,
black veins against a colorless morning,
each one pretending not to remember
what it was to be green.
I have known people like that.
People who buried entire summers
beneath their tongues,
who carried June inside them
through January
and never told a soul.
The sun touches the frozen water
and nothing miraculous happens.
No sudden spring.
No choir of resurrected birds.
Only light.
Only one bright coin
trembling on the surface
while underneath, unseen,
the water refuses to die.
–Joshua Walker, The Last Bard
⚘
WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT
I remember when
We got together and smoked Marijuana cigarettes
Right just after the big spiritual war in the sky was over.
We both promised each other we would after
The war was over.
Lost words find themselves again
After the collision of knives and bullets
In the white-knuckled chaos
Of impious battle in the eyes of conscious death
Amid the screams of the lost.
A white promise justified within a lifeline.
There is a mysterious energy that hides and plays
Beneath the surface
And that energy will communicate
With you
Inside your mind
And will guide you from malicious intent.
But you have to trust the energy
Before you can understand its language.
That is a word of caution
For the next winter of our discontent.
–Dane Osborne
⚘
THE DAWN SPILLING OVER
after Blair Correll
Summer ends with the dawn spilling over—
a September heatwave before the dead
rise up from their graves—Awake!—
as the day of Judgment draws nearer
to now.
You ask me how
to prepare for the coming cataclysm,
the collapse of everything we’ve ever
known—and I say, there is
no way
but to live through the chaos and
adjust to new order—
though the new is not really new,
rather, a return to the old—
a reclamation
of the ancient.
Summer ends with the dawn spilling over,
the sun filling sleepy eyes with the light
of understanding—and it’s as if
our collective amnesia,
our profound forgetting
falls away with the leaves . . .
and suddenly, we are left
shivering & shaking—naked—
with the truth of our bones—
Alone!—yet ready
to remember
all we can be
with rest,
dreaming
of slow growth
into gentle
spring.
–the dithyrambler
⚘
IN SPRING
When I see the soft grass again
It is an apology and a reward
For the crippling
For the holding on
And during their winter
Did they know what was to be
I never did
Blinded by wastes of nothing
But there was hope in my feet
When I kept walking
When I stumbled onward
I still do not know where I am going
Only that I will keep going and going
Like the astronauts and deep sea divers
As the shoots crawl up and reach for the sun
So too do my feet keep walking toward more life
–Blair Correll
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
With endless love & gratitude,
the Dandelion Scribes
P.S. — Don’t forget to check out our events page to keep up with our ongoing book tour! Come see us, meet & greet local authors, hear live spoken-word poetry performances, support the Scribes by purchasing a book, and get your copy signed by the contributors themselves. See you soon!
