Kelly Easton holds a Master of Arts in French Translation and Conference Interpretation.

She spent fifteen years interpreting in the halls of diplomacy, working with the words of others.

She now tends to her own writing. She lives in Northern Virginia, where she can often be found riding horses cross-country.

She is founding editor of Compass Rose Literary Journal: https://www.compassroseliterary.com/

Return

Fall back into me,
That snows invert to melt
and tides roll back the flood,
that silence rends to roar
and rains lift off the floor,
that time remits its hours.

Give back my rightful hours,
return the clock to me;
waltz back across the floor,
that glaciers cease to melt
and sighs rise up in roar,
that sunlight breaks the flood.

Arrest this sorrow’s flood,
that it not last another hour;
rouse dreams awake to roar,
unleash lost hopes in me.
Let pain collapse and melt,
and love command the floor.

Dance back across my floor,
that tears here cannot flood;
that summers warm to melt
long winter’s broken hours.
Bring autumn back to me,
stoke back its fire’s roar.

Shout abandon, let it roar;
unlock time’s chest upon the floor.
Reverse the wrongs to me,
let rage the stifled flood;
forgiveness claims its hour,
all rancor now to melt.

Let cliffs fall tall and melt,
silent songs uplift to roar;
retrieve the stolen hours,
reclaim our broken floors.
Fear not this sacred flood,
be not afraid of me.

Yes, let us melt into the floor;
this love to roar, new hearts to flood.
Fold back the hour now: fall back into me

Stateless

Carry me
over this broad bend.

My body aches,
its slanted stakes

grown tired of
time’s inflamed embrace.

Walk me to the
meadow, the mead;

Bring me flower or seed,
an offering of spring.

Quell the wintry gusts,
these long and broken dusks.

Show me ‘round the corner
again, walk me to the door;

My expanses that they melt
into far horizons’ floor.

Carry me to summer,
to repose upon the shore

Or over into winter,
beside the fire’s roar.

Lift me, enlighten me,
before the end is here—

Make it all make sense to me,
this boundless state of lost-at-sea

Resilience

I’ve dunked my head in mountain lakes
Loons spiraling into blackness next to me

Thrown your remnants into trash can pyres
Dotting parks in our old city

Sat hundreds of hours in the chair
Willing, unfailing, to look my part straight on

Swallowed scores of capsules to tame the heat
My brain’s sparks calmed, ah lithium and good sleep

I’ve bedded diplomats, artists, strangers and jerks
Spent months celibate, sucking hot air into my belly

Twisting my limbs to squeeze out the damp chi
Needles in my back, my temples, my toes

Unlocked meridians’ flows
Hot stones for the throes

I’ve lain naked in grass
Rocked hours between trees

Hammocked, staring at clouds and leaves
Read all of Faulkner, Berryman, Louise

Pitched fits, cried rivers
Taken hot baths, sweated my sourness out

Wrung towels, found true love
Birthed a human, shoveled snow

Raked coals, shoved logs
Into fires, blasting breath to coax flames

Buried memories, old receipts
Bared my resentments to sister souls

Come clean, forgone the drink
Shouted honesty, scoured kitchen sinks

Shorn locks into bangs
Now tresses, regrown

Gone gray at my temples
Rubbed balm into my bones

Wrapped my body in weighted blankets
Huddled beside my beloveds, warm

Scratched it all out into verse,
Letters, confessionals, spent

And yet
And yet
And yet

A wave spills
Out my gut

And I’m back
To when you left;

A child sobbing
In confusion, bereft

And so I begin
Again

Juxtaposed

A reed bends
A blade of grass splits, as child whistles through it

An old car sputters down worn road
A mother lifts mewling newborn to chest

A son graduates, again
A wife pops brown buds off fall stems

A piano bench creaks
A girl stuffs cotton into her ears

A pot of water boils over
A soft fist drops rosemary atop stove’s bouillabaisse

A brow furrows
A pelvis tilts

A sandpiper flits down long shore
A gelding gallops across hillock in spring field

A reader drops hundredth tome onto pile
A musician rubs rosin into her bow

A man says goodbye, again
A belly swells, fledgling life curled in

An arpeggio through phonograph trills
A pianist repeats Rachmaninoff’s ascents until stilled

A story sits, unfinished
A writer scrawls stranded excess onto page

A small scarab crouches
A girl cries

Nowhere to put all this;
Just here, the quiet midst