ALL Review is pleased to announce Rachel K. Martin's poem "At 50" has been chosen as a runner up for the ALL Originals contest.
At 50
The day arrives with rain
A soothing patter on the tin
roof of my porch where I
sit sipping warm coffee
smoothing neural folds
I look over the fields past
the barn with the weathered
vane to the steady flow
of the creek
Today a beaver dam, a pile
of feathers, patches
of overturned grass
The feathers choose me
as they shift with the breeze
like the clouds that reveal
that luminous seam
stretching my body like a dove
Was it yesterday I held
the weighty stone by the gate,
the sickly apple upon the hill,
the decaying fence rails readying
their fall?
My seat settles me so I can see
a stick from the dam break
free as the bright gold of a finch
lands its song on bared soil
finding seed
