special issue 1
// p o e t r y
Cauldron of Change
by Mackenzie Sains
Holy stone beneath our feet, you are the bedrock of this valley.
We are the mountains— ancient women, metamorphic and formed by fire.
We are the new women; we are answered ancestral prayers
formed as flickering aspens, lupines in the amethyst, flowing waters
of eternal time: the headwater’s invariable truth as tributaries to the river.
Before this winter’s returned reign, the harvest will bear her brambled fruit
stronger than before the frost, glucose-sweetened at the roots.
It is a choice to change, an agency to surrender, letting light melt you
in the cauldron of the valley, while the fire hums of change. Glaciation is just a phase—
now, you rest your bones, trusting how this snow is blossom food
with wildflowers for eyes and a body that will become blossoms of bones.
Turn me into a meadow and I shall seed for eternity.
We embrace the arc of eternity at this hallowed equinoctial hour, the great turning
that wheels around a hole in the stone that births this river humming.
about the author // Mackenzie Sains
| Mackenzie Sains (she/her) is a poet, writer, and dreamer in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina where she loves to farm and camp. She will be graduating in July with her MFA in Creative Writing with an emphasis in Poetry from Western Colorado University. |
Instagram: @_mackenziesains
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