Wildling

Comfortable in the cold,
mist tendrils rising
across morning garden,
dew-dampened boots
dry in the rising wind.
Cracking this year’s journal,
I release pleasure to the river.
Behind a dome of December clouds,
the sun struggles.
Seasonal birds stir to wing,
lofting at flurry speeds.
Across the water, a deer, a fox,
surprise black bear and cub
at the shoreline.
I tip Southern tea, ice-brewed,
from a camper’s metal cup,
tinker with sketch tracings
from New York, New Mexico.
There is radio word of gale rain
loosed in the evening.
I’ll read and dine to the squall
of water’s rush against the dock,
sleet’s scatter off casement windows.
Sleeping against worry, I’ll wake
to daybreak’s mystery unmasked.

R.T. Castleberry‘s work has appeared in Roanoke Review, Santa Fe Literary Review, Pedestal Magazine, Green Mountains Review, The Alembic and Visitant. Internationally, it has been published in Canada, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, New Zealand and Antarctica. His poetry appears in the anthologies: Travois-An Anthology of Texas Poetry, TimeSlice, The Weight of Addition, Anthem: A Tribute to Leonard Cohen, Kind Of A Hurricane: Without Words and Blue Milk’s anthology, Dawn. His chapbook, Arriving At The Riverside, was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2010. An e-book, Dialogue and Appetite, was published by Right Hand Pointing in May, 2011.