Claytor Lake

Slivers of trout break the lake
open, their swift disappearance
like the silence after a question.

It’s quiet. Blessedly so. Steaming
mist skims the water’s surface,
morning light oranges the poplars

and I am thinking about my son,
his breath and his skin’s warmth.
He’s small. Vulnerably so. Acorns

become oaks, fog melts to clarity,
this wide world wakes to sounds:
blue heron yelps, the rasp of grass-

hoppers, a clique of croaking crows,
the plop-plop-plop of smallmouth
bass leaping into the unnamed, and

my child on the porch, his joyous
shrieks of aliveness approaching
something nearing an answer.

Ben Groner III is the author of the poetry collection Dust Storms May Exist (Madville Publishing), winner of the 2024 American Fiction Award for Religious Poetry and named the Best Poetry Collection of 2024 by The Nashville Scene. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Orison Anthology, and been published in Peatsmoke Journal, GASHER, South Carolina Review, Rust & Moth, and elsewhere. Formerly a bookseller at Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee, you can see more of his work at https://bengroner.com/