Cave Run Lake by Jeremy Paden

We passed fields of goldenrod near Salt Lick,

saw ironweed and cardinal lobelia

as we climbed up Zilpo Road to our camp site.

We have come to spend some days in the sun.

Cold lingers in the mornings uninvited,

so we huddle at the stove with coffee

cupped in hands under chins, close to hearts.

We are becoming again misers of warmth.

But the gathering of tall coreopsis

beside our tent and the spicebush swallowtail

that has flit around us these past two days,

draw our eyes away from the burst thistle pods

and the first fallen persimmons. It’s autumn,

and yet the world is still full of wild bloom.

Jeremy Paden is Professor of Spanish at Transylvania University. He is a recipient of a Al Smith Individual Artist Fellowship for poetry and the author of ruina montium (Broadstone, 2016) and prison recipes (Broadstone, 2018). His poems have appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Hampden Sydney Review, Louisville Review, Still: The Journal, and other places.

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