The rain fell
and a bird fell
and the world grew
lighter, more
resilient.
The rain fell
and sparrows
dropped down
from feeder to ground. Yes
I indulge them even
in summer—the doves
heavy with themselves,
ground feeders, but one
flies up to the perch,
attempts to land, gives up
and lights back down
to pick up seeds
that fall.
You say
a waste, expensive to feed,
no need when bugs, berries
abound.
But my heart needs
such inconsequential
fluttering.
The rain falls
and leaves droop
with the gathering wash
of June becoming
more itself
deeper and greener and I
can’t stop falling
into it.
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The poem, “June Rain” is included in Raphael Kosek’s chapbook, Harmless Encounters, winner of The Comstock Review 2021 Jessie Bryce Niles Chapbook Contest. A review of the book by Ken Holland can be read here on Lightwood under Reviews/Books. Two additional poems by Raphael Kosek are published here in Lightwood: “The Fox,” (Issue #8), and “The Way West” (Issue #1).
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Raphael Kosek’s poems and nonfiction have appeared in Poetry East, Catamaran, and many other journals. Her chapbook, Rough Grace, won the 2014 Concrete Wolf Chapbook Prize. She won the 2019 Bacopa Literary Review’s poetry contest and Eastern Iowa Review’s 2016 nonfiction prize. American Mythologywas recently released from Brick Road Poetry Press. She teaches English at Marist College where her students keep her real. She is the 2019-2020 Dutchess County Poet Laureate.
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