Poetic Justice

Editor’s note: Two lines were omitted when the following poem, a runner-up in The Spokesman-Review 1995 Youth Outdoor Writing Contest, was published Dec. 24. It appears below in its entirety.

By Kara Dixon

Senior, Mead

Coals burn

into pale ash, sparks

running on wind.

Heat rocks the unsteady

log back and forth.

I try to drown out the methodic thump,

knowing it calls

me to the sister

I must give up, tonight.

The white ash swirls.

How many times we

camped by the fire,

shivered at each other’s

ghost stories, howled

at the far off cry of wolves.

How many times I

followed her down a game trail,

or along the river, chasing her cat.

Now she goes where I cannot follow.

Billowing ash

brushes my uplifted face.

xxxx