Step Into Starlight
A poem by KB Ballentine

Step Into Starlight

Even the sky was bigger than we were
as we burrowed into the weary earth,
thoughts as mangled as morning glory vines
hacked by a trimmer.

A jumble of nerves, we surrendered
to anxiety and mirrored every fear,
crying, enraged – the world a volcano
cascading its heat, its ash.
The inmost core collapsing.

When next we poke our heads
from these bunkers, when we finally
calm ourselves, may we discover
a nest of leaves, a honeycomb,
a tangle of berries where we can feast.

Instead of a trench, a grassy basin,
a bowl licked clean
of dust and wounds – one that can hold
such a wide, bright sky.

About the Author:

KB Ballentine’s eighth collection, Spirit of Wild, launched in 2023. Her books can be found with Blue Light Press, Iris Press, Middle Creek Publishing, and Celtic Cat Publishing. Published in North Dakota Quarterly, Atlanta Review and Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, and others, her work also appears in anthologies including I Heard a Cardinal Sing (2022), The Strategic Poet (2021), Pandemic Evolution (2021), and Carrying the Branch: Poets in Search of Peace (2017). Learn more at www.kbballentine.com.

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