The Ache

by Daniel Lowry

I found healing in a quiet burn
That played pellucid over stone,
In a winded leaf that flicked and turned,
Untroubled where its dance be blown,

In the torching of a twilit star
With wick enough to burn till day,
And a turtle in an earthen jar
That stared, but did not care to play.

I found it in resurrected song,
Forgotten forests, brooding coals,
Once in a dream (though not for long),
In gathered knots of kindly souls,

But it was children’s eyes that told
What all these liniments could not tell,
And then I knew my wound was old,
The ache a long-unshattered spell.

Daniel Lowry lives bookishly in one of the more domesticated regions of West Virginia. He writes for fun and as a mode of wrestling with God. 

Photography by Kenneth Godoy