For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
(found phrase) after Rilke
That first flush of daylight against the hills—
the rosy fingers of antiquity
still with us, now, leavening
the sky across black branches
curving, hatched and glorious:
alive, as we eke human cries
through days and centuries, believe
our own words and the purpose of our deaths.
She disdains us at these times—
casting serenity in shadows of trees,
holding her face in plain veils
like women whose countrymen forbid them—
she keeps her power, briefly, then.
in the permission of flowers to bloom freely
along highways. In dawn spilling blood
beyond colorless earth as we lay still sleeping.
Lita Sorensen’s poetry has been published in various journals, including The Spoon River Review, Dislocate, Real, The Cortland Review, Amoskeag, as well as many others, and abroad in England and Ireland. She is also the author of three nonfiction books for young adults published by Rosen Press in NYC. She holds an M.A. in creative writing, and recently moved west to Arizona from Iowa City, IA.