“Untitled” poem by Isaac James

Students write a poem inspired by the theme "Fall" at The Spark's October Poetry Night at Venture on King. The mentor text for the October Poetry Night was "Samhain" by Annie Finch, a poem about autumn, a time when "we who die ourselves can peel / back another kind of veil / that hangs among us like thick smoke."

Untitled

By Isaac James

Cold, bitter and biting in its every atom

like a presence in my bones.

Warming its way into each breath,

an unending reminder of its presence.

Then, like a little whisper of a

sweet promise. That first glimpse

of sun. That first morning

free of that cold wind from

out of the branches.

Beckons, like a scent of the

promised spring. Of rebirth.

Of warmth, vitality, and freedom.

These happy, young days seen

through slits of bright green grass,

brighter than all of the suns, the

stars, and the cosmos. All of these

things combined. You feel renewed.

The next day. The calculated cold, like the

hands of death at your door. It grabs

your ankle from under your bed, brings

you back under, back in that cave.

That cave so blindingly dark, so cruel,

so draining and so hauntingly permeating,

5 days until March. Maybe then.