A red tree grows. Flaming birds explode
like buckshot from its branches. The tree
ascends so high in the sky, stars decorate
its outstretched limbs.
Night’s shawl dissolves. Verna rises,
points a black-lacquered forefinger. Silver
ash soft underfoot feeds roots ophidians
encircle. Writhing, they rise, wrap
themselves around the red tree.
And I become one with the last Rowan Oak,
the last thing standing watch
at the end of the world.
Katherine Nelson-Born is a poet, freelance writer, writing coach, and editor
for K&K Manuscript Editing. Katherine earned her Ph.D. at Georgia
State University and her MFA in Poetry at Virginia Commonwealth
University. Her 2016 poetry chapbook, When Mockingbirds Sing,
published by Finishing Line Press, features award-winning poems that set
words “free from earth’s orbit, meteors ablaze…firing across the universe.”
Katherine’s poems and other creative writing have appeared in numerous
literary journals, including the 2017 Emerald Coast Review, Alyss,
Birmingham Poetry Review, GSU Review, Ellipsis, Maple Leaf Rag and
Penumbra. Her poetry earned “Honorable Mention” at the 2015
Alabama Writers Conclave, placed among finalists in the 1994 & 1996
Agnes Scott College Writer’s Festival, and won the 1990 University of
New Orleans/Tennessee Williams Ellipsis award for poetry.
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