Raphael Kosek

The Charm

You hear the soft spooning of the rain
before you know it to be rain. Your mind
cannot quiet. You understand

how the cypress trees tormented Van Gogh
with their beauty even as he loved them,
while the sky above bled blue with a sharp
and willful clarity.

Some nights are spent numbering the dead
who still murmur and stir in the air around you.
Send them on their way, but leave the door
open. They may share their secrets
if you don’t seem too hungry. For some

solace comes when the trees turn
ashen pink with the flush of morning
and the ordinariness of starlings
brighten the dogwood with noisy
vicarious life. For you

it is hard excavation in a rocky field
where your words prove a blunt shovel.
Dig deep, lean in, the bitter root you unearth
will keep you like a charm.


The Fox

This morning,
             unlike other mornings,
a red fox loped across the road
in front of our car—
             a bright arrow
streaking on an agenda all its own,
             catching us unawares
in the car’s vapid, boxed warmth.

Because of its pointed beauty,
             its consuming animal purpose,
we can sip our coffee,
             conduct our business,
struggle with these weighted days

             as if we, too, slip away
like flames into the darkness
             of mountains,
to drink the clean grief
             of still pools
in the first light of morning.


Spring, ca.1922
             Georgia O'Keeffe
       (written on request for the Frances Lehman-Loeb Art Gallery, Vassar College)

We too are unable to contain ourselves
             in the wild exultation
of this world that pulls us
             into the clouded blue
like the tree already leaning
             so far into the gold future
of autumn.

The eager thrust of spring
             is barely restrained
in the green-purpled wave
             burgeoning into
blue sky where even the clouds
             reflect the force of green.

A stem so lean and strong
             cleaves the canvas in two
as it soars up and out of the frame
             at a wicked slant
                         piercing the sky,
rushing past the blue shadow moon
             while two blushing orbs
anchor us in earthy delight,
             the promise of pink—
the fragile ripeness beyond
             such hell-bent renewal.


About the Author

Raphael Kosek’s poems have appeared in such venues as Poetry East, Catamaran, and Briar Cliff Review. Her latest chapbook, Rough Grace won the 2014 Concrete Wolf Chapbook Prize. Her lyric essays won first prize at Bacopa Review (2017) and Eastern Iowa Review (2016). She won the Bacopa Review’s 2019 poetry contest (Pushcart Prize nominee). Her full-length poetry book, American Mythology, was recently released by Brick Road Poetry Press and Garrison Keillor has chosen two poems from it for The Writer’s Almanac. She teaches English at Marist College where her students keep her real. She is the 2019-2020 Dutchess County NY Poet Laureate.

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