Here, where two streams meet
and Horse Creek begins, a bridge
crosses the main trail to another
deeper, denser on the other side.
Rhododendrons disguise the stone,
ride all the way up the ridge. In Spring
there will be fountains of pink and white,
but for now they are still glossy and dark,
tongue-like leaves slumping toward a ground
already stained with rust and red-blood leaves.
A few tulip poplars dress in remnants
of gold. A dog barks farther up the trail,
and I know we are not alone
though all we can hear above the creek’s
rumble is an occasional wren in limbs laced overhead.
Crisp air on our cheeks – clear, sharp tang
that smells of winter prickles with leaf dust
and moss, and we are drawn into days
of late waking, early shadows.
It’s time to turn back – back
to where baring branches curving, obscuring
the sky finally open to the last bit of blue
we can see, inviting us back
into the land of the living.
Living where Tennessee kisses North Carolina, KB Ballentine has nine collections of poetry, most recently All the Way Through (Sheila-Na-Gig Inc., 2024). Published in Porchlight: A Journal of Southern Literature, North Dakota Quarterly, Atlanta Review and Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, and others. Her work also appears in anthologies including Women Speak (2025) and The Strategic Poet (2021). Learn more at www.kbballentine.com.
Click the images below to find KB Ballentine’s remarkable poetry:
Featured image credit: Horse Creek in Greene County, Tennessee, from Brian Stansberry—Wikimedia, CC 3.0
