They point away from where I’m jogging to
as I lean head down straight into the gale
as if against it. Just exactly who
I think I am, they seem to know, these frail
cat stalks and blades, cotton-pods, shreds
and tufts of which, kachooed across the path,
bank along neglected flower beds.
Pushing on in all this aftermath
of hot green afternoons that now survive
as memories of grass and sun and song
and everything unthinkingly alive,
this is my one way left of being strong
and I will argue it against the wind
in stride, and striving, and undisciplined.
Terence Culleton is a former Bucks County (PA) Poet Laureate, a 2019 Pushcart Prize nominee, and recipient of First Honorable Mention in the 2019 Helen Schaible International Traditional Sonnet Contest. Terence has published two collections of formally crafted narrative and lyric poems, A Communion of Saints (2011) and Eternal Life (2015), both with Anaphora Literary Press. Poems from his forthcoming collection of sonnets, A Tree and Gone (FutureCycle Press), have recently appeared in Antiphon, The Lyric, The Eclectic Muse, Innisfree, The Road Not Taken (including Feature Poem), Blue Unicorn Review, and Raintown Review.
Sparks of Calliope 