KATE BUCKLEY

April 2008

Kate Buckley is an acclaimed poet, a classically trained painter and a ninth-generation Kentucky native whose work has appeared in literary journals across the United States. She was the 2007 finalist for the Joy Bale Boone Poetry Prize, the 2007 winner of the Gabehart Prize for Imaginative Writing for poetry, and the 2008 winner of the North American Review's James Hearst Poetry Prize. A classically trained painter, she has also had her artwork privately collected and published in journals. Buckley currently resides in Laguna Beach with her husband, three unruly dogs and a tangle of roses.

BLACK MOUNTAIN PANTOUM

We climbed Black Mountain in the rain,
the coal-dark rain of diamonds
long since dissipated,
staining our skin a slow black.

The coal-dark rain of diamonds,
feet seeking purchase up thin side of hill,
staining our skin a slow black,
dusky trickles, small rivers of the body.

Feet seeking purchase up thin side of hill,
trees' roots cracking like bird bones,
dusky trickles, small rivers of the body
beneath sagging soot of foothill.

Trees' roots cracking like bird bones,
mountain cleaved of stomach
beneath sagging soot of foothill,
stripped clean of veins.

Mountain cleaved of stomach,
long since dissipated,
stripped clean of veins,
we climbed Black Mountain in the rain.

SPRING

Three babies play at her feet,
dark heads burnished in the mid-March sun.

They are laid out before her,
a small army.

One clings to her skirts, chubby hand clenched in a fist,
beats a tiny tattoo against her plump-veined thigh.

She thinks of life before them,
remembers coffee and quiet,

the dry hills stretched before her,
brown with winter,

seeds buried deep,
waiting for the rains,

for the thick viscous mud,
for the translucence of first small shoots,

for the vines that finally curl and stretch
small fingers to the sun.