It Was Written Long Ago

The wing’s beat and the owl’s stare.
The cool drink of morning on the mountain.
The verdant fields knew how to sing
long before the blue bunting rose to the occasion. Before
tourists rose from the pavement and declared this land pure.

Vessels with technology might be combing Lake Champlain
for history, but we know there’s no fatidic tale the lake will tell.
It was written in our bones; we don’t pay attention to the story.
The ursine birth of our distractions
keeps us hibernated through winter, and beyond.

It is quiet enough at the top of Owl’s Head to hear your own voice
pierce the stillness, crack it like a quartz line.
The fear settles over you, an infant in a blanket.
The wind.    The echo
of someone’s love
barely touching
your skin.

Samantha Kolber’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Tiny Seed Journal, Rise Up Review, Red Silk: A Red Tent Anthology, Hunger Mountain, Minerva Rising, and PoemCity, among others. Prizes include runner-up in the 2010 Ruth Stone Poetry Prize, and first place in the 2014 J. Richard Barr Memorial Award from The Poetry Society of Vermont. She received her MFA in creative writing from Goddard College, and recently completed a post-grad semester in poetry at the Solstice MFA Program at Pine Manor College. She lives in Montpelier, Vermont.

Why Poetry Matters: Poetry is for all of us: it lives in our heartbeats, in our breath; in our languages & our tongues.