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october dusk

Published onDec 09, 2024
october dusk
·


october dusk


the evening dark
falls all around me
its warm breath
casts a shadow on my face

sitting on my front steps
I am a candle flame
drawing moths and mosquitoes
holding the moments in my cupped hands

he sits quietly by me
memories of the day's work
swift moving color shared
like fall leaves in the yard

the potatoes from the garden
lie scattered in the grass
tomorrow we will sort them
and store them for winter

his hand rests on my neck
as he slowly stands
he offers the other dirty hand
to help me up

our eyes meet in the fading light
we go inside
surrendering to night
the smell of earth still strong

Volume 10, no. 1, 1982

Rita Quillen’s most recent poetry book, Some Notes You Hold (Madville 2020) has received a Bronze Medal from the Feathered Quill Book Awards, a finalist listing for poetry in the American Writing Awards, and is a Bonus Book for the 2023 International Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guys Book Club. Her novel, Wayland, published by Iris Press in 2019, is the March 2022 Bonus Book of the Month for the International Pulpwood Queens and Timber Kings BookClub. It is a sequel to her first novel, Hiding Ezra (Little Creek Books, 2014). Her poetry collection, The Mad Farmer’s Wife, published in 2016 by Texas Review Press, a Texas A&M affiliation, was a finalist for the Weatherford Award in Appalachian Literature from Berea College. One of six semi- finalists for the 2012-14 Poet Laureate of Virginia, she has received three Pushcart nominations, and a Best of the Net nomination in 2012, and was the 2021 honoree of the Emory and Henry College Appalachian Literary Festival. She lives, farms, writes songs, and takes photographs at Early Autumn Farm in southwestern Virginia. Read more at www.ritasimsquillen.com.

 

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