KB Ballentine has a M.A. in Writing and a M.F.A. in Creative Writing, Poetry. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and publications, and she was a finalist for the 2006 Joy Harjo Poetry Award and was awarded the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize in 2006 and 2007. Fragments of Light (2009) and Gathering Stones (2008) were published by Celtic Cat Publishing. In 2011, two anthologies published her work: Southern Light: Twelve Contemporary Southern Poets and A Tapestry of Voices.
Trespass
Silver puddles glint in the half-light, stipple lake’s edge.
Hemlocks wade into the water. Branches flirt
with the breeze, crows stenciled on fog. Morning unfurls,unfastens pinks and yellows from the mountains
one ribbon at a time. Mist dissolves, exposes rotting
fence posts, tumbled trees, three deer. They lift long necks,noses quivering, before dashing into the rhododendron,
dark leaves slapping after them. Soon honeysuckle
will sweeten these woods, sun scald away scented shadows.But, for now, late winter still speaks in the echoing hollows,
the muted dusk .
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