Benjamin Karren
Life Lived on Paper
Heavy-footed snowshoes mash a floor of powder
Snow-dusted hemlocks pasted over dreary skies
My only respite an eye-catching red-winged blackbird
whose song of "Conk la ree" undulated off thawing terrain
like the first beeps on the heart monitor after my surgery
My malfunctioning compass had forever wandered in circles
Cycling through the mandatory overtime shifts at the factory,
Suppers at the Sportsman's Club, and stock car racing on Sundays
My dreams sluggishly extracted like sap early in sugaring season
The river reflection, an unrecognizable slate beard on a furrowed face
Yet the heart attack had never been a death knell, rather a Reveille
There was still time to jet my daughter to Ireland and strum a guitar
A first laceration appeared in the frozen river where water spurted out
the current, my EKG results pulsing downstream beyond the horizon.
Bio
Benjamin Karren is a native Vermonter currently residing in Arizona. He is an emerging poet with works recently appearing in Northern New England Review, Wild Greens Magazine, and WestWard Quarterly. Benjamin enjoys exploring a variety of topics including rural life, the divine, and human psychology in his writing.