Kim Harvey
Salute of the Vale
Into our cups, gold and raised up
for drinking, pour. The mist enters
the church of our childhood,
silk-veiled with long trail of gown.
Amidst whispers of vespers
her grey eyes flutter the coarsely-
toothed aspen asking, Is it time?
Other branches answer,
their bare bones crackling.
Do the thing that scares you.
Rustle of maple, gentle steeple
with her hair ablaze. She will
quiet us with her love,
rejoice over us with singing.
We are one body. Burgundy heart
calling us home like a dwarf star.
Sweetgum, salvia, goldenrod,
hickory: constellation of trees.
The leaves come down close
to the ground and listen hard.
for drinking, pour. The mist enters
the church of our childhood,
silk-veiled with long trail of gown.
Amidst whispers of vespers
her grey eyes flutter the coarsely-
toothed aspen asking, Is it time?
Other branches answer,
their bare bones crackling.
Do the thing that scares you.
Rustle of maple, gentle steeple
with her hair ablaze. She will
quiet us with her love,
rejoice over us with singing.
We are one body. Burgundy heart
calling us home like a dwarf star.
Sweetgum, salvia, goldenrod,
hickory: constellation of trees.
The leaves come down close
to the ground and listen hard.
Biography
Kim Harvey (she/her) is a San Francisco Bay Area poet and Associate Editor at Palette Poetry. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. You can find her work in Poets Reading the News, Rattle, Radar, Barren Magazine, 3Elements Review, Wraparound South, Black Bough Poetry, and Juke Joint Magazine. She is the 1st Prize winner of the Comstock Review’s 2019 Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial Award and the 3rd Prize winner of the 2019 Barren Press Poetry Contest. Twitter: @kimharveypoet. Instagram: @luna_jack. Web: www.kimharvey.net
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