Alban Arthan by Kari Gunter-Seymour

Alban Arthan

There are magics to behold
in the dark, on winter’s longest night,
if we’ve the verve to herald them.
I huddle, umbrellaed
beneath a thick-pinioned stand
of pitlolly pine, bundled in Carhartt,
wool cap tugged low.

The temperature dips as twilight ebbs.
Breathy winds set the tone—
a confluence of feminine whispers,
then rain, dainty droplets
swelling into two/three beats—
a council of charcoal-faced warriors
crouching their drums.

A junco lands slapdash, barely
two feet from mine, head swiveling
side to side, breastplate heaving.
Our histories balance precariously
in the seeing. I hold
still as stone until he’s flown,
invoke traveling mercies.

Somewhere south a coyote
yips, his canticle laced
in arctic threads. I picture him
pacing under ice-coated oaks,
nose in the air, divining his options.

Without pomp or pageantry,
snow tiptoes in,
turns down the sound,
piles up gestures,
conjures tales only told in the cold.

Stiff-legged, I wriggle from my burrow,
cup tiny vestiges in mittened hands,
swoon at the moon’s silvery rise
as I slow-foot homeward,
the landscape a cauldron
of glitter, flake and revenants.

*

Kari Gunter-Seymour is the Poet Laureate of Ohio. Her current poetry collections include Dirt Songs (EastOver Press 2024), winner of the StoryTrade Award and POTY Award; Alone in the House of My Heart (Ohio University Swallow Press, 2022), winner of the Legacy Book Award and Best Book Award. She is the executive director and editor of the Women of Appalachia Project’s Women Speak anthology series. Her work has been featured on Verse Daily, World Literature Today, American Book Review, The New York Times and Poem-a-Day.