[00:00:00] KB Ballentine's sixth poetry collection, "The Light Tears Loose," can be found at Blue Light Press. The poem she gave us, "After Surgery," is a meditation on all we see and feel as we recover. Here is "After Surgery":
[00:00:17] A pair of swans preen, slide
[00:00:20] swiftly across the blue cool
[00:00:22] of lake -- soon they will taste
[00:00:24] the frost before it comes and rise
[00:00:27] together finding a thermal draft
[00:00:29] that guides them to warmer climes.
[00:00:32] The lamps on each bedside table beckon,
[00:00:35] downy softness sandwiched
[00:00:37] between them where letters turn to words
[00:00:40] that take dreams to flight:
[00:00:43] promise of light before the final dark.
[00:00:47] Following the trail as sure as scent,
[00:00:50] the wolf of smoky fur and tender heart
[00:00:53] nuzzles his mate. She licks his ear
[00:00:56] while they pause beneath an evergreen
[00:00:58] leaning with the weight of snow.
[00:01:00] Branches bristle, spear the feathery mounds.
[00:01:05] Toes seek solace in fuzzy comfort ,
[00:01:08] left and right slippers waiting by the door.
[00:01:12] Twelve hours constricted in stiff leather
[00:01:15] pressing concrete pleads a soothing escape
[00:01:18] to stretch and wiggle.
[00:01:21] Seahorses couple, anchor themselves
[00:01:23] in the reeds, the grass. Undulating
[00:01:27] they wrap around each other
[00:01:28] and daily dance invisible currents --
[00:01:31] nodding to blennies and gobies, to kelp
[00:01:34] clinging across the rock and sand.
[00:01:37] I didn't know I was grateful,
[00:01:40] with my eyes and ears and lungs,
[00:01:42] to watch the moon twin the sun: two flawed
[00:01:46] globes that balance night and day --
[00:01:49] lead the seasons, reel against the dizziness
[00:01:52] that unbalances my new walk, my new life.
