L. Ward Abel

The Light that Travels 
 
On this morning that seeps then pours 
into bright halls, through small rooms  
woods, over shoals, shallow bays 
and floods the seaboard streams  
            and grasses, expands rocks  
            at their highest points, 
 
I continue into what unfolds  
            like  
geologic 
time 
with its low groans and  
scraping and cracks 
in a godhead flow  
I can only ride 
and not divert. 

L. Ward Abel’s work has appeared in Rattle, The Reader, The Istanbul Review, The Worcester Review, The Honest Ulsterman, Versal, hundreds of others, and is the author of three full collections and ten chapbooks of poetry, including Jonesing For Byzantium (UKA Press, 2006), American Bruise (Parallel Press, 2012), Little Town gods (Folded Word Press, 2016), A Jerusalem of Ponds (erbacce-Press, 2016), The Rainflock Sings Again (Unsolicited Press, 2019), Floodlit (Beakful, 2019), and The Width of Here (Silver Bow, 2021).