Kelly Johnston
3 Poems

Holding on to Hope of Spring

                   Thear the north winds
                   blowing icy messages from
                   high country. Oaks cling to last
                   year’s leaves. Redbuds
                   have not purpled. Bluets
                   have not yet peeked.

Static electricity erupts from my blankets as I reach
                   for a split of firewood. The winter wood
                   pile is almost gone. My trailer door
                   rattles in unison with skeletons of
                   burnt cedars resisting the wind. Turkey
                   vultures have returned to resume the
                   wait. Pulling my boots over worn woolen
                   socks is a chore. This floor is a glacier.

I weary of reusing old coffee grounds. If my truck
                   will start, I must journey south for
                   provisions. Maybe I will find fescue
                   greening in short grass beside the
                   road, or henbit taking over winter
                   wheat. Even a golden dandelion
                   emerging from the dust, like the sun
                   from the horizon, would be a sign.

 

Blackbirds

S

The prairie fire makes
skeletons

of a grove of red cedar trees,
reduces

to ash tallgrass and wildflowers,
reveals

forgotten strands of barbed
wire

on the ground like surgical
sutures.
My chainsaw makes short work of
bones.

Splinters and shards scrape
and gouge

my flesh. Dripping blood
nourishes

scorched earth and blackened
stubble.

Like red-winged blackbirds,
we wait

for replenishing
rains.

 

Twilight Rescue

Amid the silt of a retreating river, an egret is motionless in the mud. River bottom
grime has stained wing tips and belly down. Spindle legs disappear in the muck. Long
neck and head rotate like radar.

The skinny boy is shirtless, white washboard ribs vivid. He steps off the bank, sinks in
to his ankles, wobbles to gain balance, drags one boot free and steps forward. The
egret watches, trembles, tries again to escape.

The boy whispers like an angel, bends from the waist as his legs are clutched by the
mud, One finger traces a line along the bird’s back, neck and crest then grasps the
beak. The other arm cradles the egret, raises. it out of the mud and into flight –
moonrise from horizon’s misery.

 

 

Kelly Johnston is a life-long Kansan. He was born in Lawrence in 1955, and graduated from Wichita State in 1977 as a creative writing major. He has published poems in Mikrokosmos, The I-70 Review, The Flint Hills Review, and The California Quarterly. Kelly’s poem “In The Desert Near White Sands” won Best Overall Poem in the Winfield Kansas Voices Poetry Contest in 2017. Kelly’s chapbook, Kalaska was published by Blue Cedar Press in 2017. Kelly loves to spend time on 70 acres in the Chautauqua Hills near Cross Timbers State Park where most of his poems are inspired.