History is a Verb in the Downpour​​

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Rain on the ridge breaks ripe apricots

of sunset clouds. 

It hammers larks, bobcats, peonies 

on the hen’s head. 

History flows out of the stallion’s 

back. Moonlight cracks 

its latticework, drips silver smelt 

on the face of black rock 

like a story 

that forgets how it’s told. 

Stars drop, one by one, 

as pebbles aflame 

on grazing livestock.

The wind cooks 

the fragrance of centuries. 

Lightyears, ten trillion yesterdays, the stone 

age in its throat. 

It keeps my ancestors’ secrets 

carved on caves. 

The barn owl carries 

the sky on the obsidian span of its wings. 

Lightening shocks streetlights 

into its swell. 

The world wades 

its running river, muddy waves churn  

promised return. It lapses 

into a collective echo 

of knees. Elastic pulling 

at ancient locomotion 

of the trees. 

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By Grace Lynn

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Grace Lynn is an emerging queer painter who lives with a chronic illness. Her work, forthcoming in The Ekphrastic Review, JAMA, Sky Island, Thimble Lit and other outlets, explores the intersections between faith, the natural world, art and the body. In her spare time, Grace enjoys listening to Bob Dylan, reading suspense novels and exploring absurd angles of art history.