At the Foot of a Mountain

In a reclusive cabin

where a wood stove hiccups

orange embers clothed

in gray ash coats,

the bottoms of my feet

feel bitter, raw air

circulating over every inch

of hard floor awash in

ghostly blue moonlight.

Through a window, I see

a lone yellow buckeye bend

in a boisterous wind

that makes me believe

it can bring down

the entire mountainside,

but I know spring

will come again on wings

of a gentler breeze that uplifts

saplings rooted sideways

in moonmilk underground.

A finalist for the 2018 Joy Bale Boone Poetry Prize, “At the Foot of a Mountain” was first published in The Heartland Review.

-Kevin J. McDaniel

Poet, Pulaski Virginia