A Poem by Ralph Monday

Summer Sits on the Cedars

Summer sits on the cedars
dark outside.  A waning
moon, perched in Aries,
flies westward seeking
the call of nocturnal geese.
Somewhere the sky's umbra
flows into a pew where
cedars in winter heave
frosted, writhing obscurities
on grieving windows.
There are walkers to the west,
unknown pupils tasting education
in those shadowed, stained glass
windows, knowing only a
vague penumbra
unconnected to the quiet trees.
Their arteries, the moon, is rock.
Behind them a declining tone
of summer/winter hallelujahs
etched on smeared fingerprints,
geese honk at the revelation.
Three cracked buttons, a
discarded shoe, summer
settles in, late today,
brooding at the moon.

Ralph Monday is an Associate Professor of English at Roane State Community College in Harriman, TN, where he teaches composition, literature, and creative writing courses.  In fall 2013, he had poems published in The New Plains Review, New Liberties Review, Fiction Weekly Literary Review, and was represented as the featured poet with 12 poems in the December issue of Poetry Repairs.  In winter 2014, he had poems published in Dead Snakes.  Summer 2014 will se a poem in Contemporary Poetry:  An Anthology of Best Present Day Poems.  His work has appeared in publications such as The Phoenix, Bitter Creek Review, Full of Crow, Impressions, Kookamonga Square, Deep Waters, Jacket Magazine, The New Plains Review, New Liberties Review, Crack the Spine, The Camel Saloon, Dead Snakes, Pyrokinection, and Poetry Repairs.  His first book, Empty Houses and American Renditions will be published by Hen House Press in Fall 2014.