Oconee
The pine-tree rolling’s
a torn brown stocking
a rift that hugs the wing
curved ten miles all the way out
to the zero line. She used
to have names like
river lightning
or was called thunderstream
below hearing or
sound a water table makes.
But now she refuses a
name I can give.
Somebody sighs.
The rainflock sings again.
L. Ward Abel, poet, teacher, retired lawyer, and composer and performer of music, lives in rural Georgia, has been published hundreds of times in print and online, and is the author of Peach Box and Verge (Little Poem Press, 2003), Jonesing for Byzantium (UK Authors Press, 2006), The Heat of Blooming (Pudding House Press, 2008), Torn Sky Bleeding Blue (erbacce-press, 2010), American Bruise (Parallel Press, 2012), Cousins Over Colder Fields (Finishing Line Press, 2013), Roseorange (Flutter Press, 2013), and Little Town Gods (Folded Word Press, 2016).
