Star Epiphany
What is it besides mid-autumn’s impending cold
that so invites the gathering of wood, the building of fires?
What about a season’s first nose-full of campfire
ignites that ancient memory of cave huddling?
What deeply seeded shift wakes us near the center,
tempts us tiptoeing away from firelight and warmth,
from the safety of others in the middle of a clear night
to stare up at clouds of stars with a new wonder?
Copyright © 2024 by Larry D. Thacker. Excerpted from New Red Words (Finishing Line Press). Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
Larry D. Thacker’s poetry, fiction, and nonfiction have appeared in Poetry South, Appalachian Journal, Still: The Journal, and Pikeville Review, among other publications. His 2021 story collection, Working It Off in Labor County, was published by West Virginia University Press. He lives in Johnson City, Tennessee.
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