EDITOR’S CHOICE: Night Anthem – A Poem by Katy Santiff

*EDITOR’S CHOICE AWARD: Bringing my favorite previously published poems back to the front page*

Submitted by Katy Santiff

Softly, follow me down the deerpath now,
down by the way the young does bounded. Come,
wearing the moon’s white kiss, undulating
fencelessness, laying your steps around rocks
we’ve weathered, back when we had fawn-spots on.
When your breath churns the out-stretched air, when your
eyes welcome the blue-bark draping darkness,
when you smell water in the wooded wind,
when you hear the night-things’ conversation
from all sides, when you feel the soft moss lost
beneath you—lay yourself down in the creek’s
low light, and sing me your anthem of night.

About the Poet

Katy Santiff has written poetry in various forms all her life. A fan of meter and rhyme, she loves lines that hypnotize the reader with their sound. She believes in densely-packed poems, preferring them to be mouthfuls when read aloud.  A lifelong Marylander, she loves water-side living.  She currently lives in Edgewater, Maryland with her wife.

Painting: Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis – Night