I Am With the Vine in Early Morning

I Am With the Vine in Early Morning

Suzanne Underwood Rhodes

when the grapes are still dark with night,
dew-heavy. Their fragrant aura wakes me
from the gray foreboding that ever follows
me from sleep. To taste them is thrilling:
the round ripe cold sweetens my mouth
like music, the leafy hands coax me in and in,
the tendrils fix me to him who was crushed
in the winepress then burst into the paradox
of perfume and pain, fragrance for the indifferent
hours of day.

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Suzanne Underwood Rhodes
Writer & Poet

Suzanne lives, writes, and teaches in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and serves as her state poet laureate. She has four published poetry collections and two books of lyrical prose, and has recent work in Christian Century, Slant, Mid-South Sonnets, and other journals and anthologies. She was featured with the poets Anya Silver and Katherine James a Christianity Today online article by Sarah Arthur, "Lent in the Shadow of Cancer" (Feb. 10, 2016).

Photography by Polina Kovaleva