Ars Poetica with Light

Photo by Europeana

A Poem by Kimberly Phinney

Oh, how I wondered in the dry, dark, desolate days

if a poem would come.

And then, she did:

She did,

she did,

            she did.

Again,

again,

                   again.

Like the morning Sun

escapes from the predawn sky

(a milky midnight hue)

and leaps off the low horizon

to splay her gilded rays—

a light almost unfathomable—

etching her verse across the Universe

(a golden, burning thread)

to save the Earth with life,

to sing her song again.

And I, a lowly servant,

await to do her bidding. 

Kimberly Phinney is a writer, professor, and counselor. She’s been published in Christianity Today, Ekstasis, Fathom, Humana Obscura, Calla Press, and more. She is founder of www.TheWayBack2Ourselves.com. Her poem “Exalted Ground” was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2024 with The Dewdrop. Her poem “An Ode to Hard Dark Nights” won the Audience Choice Award in the Bright Wings Poetry Contest with Ekstasis and Makers and Mystics in 2024. And her small collection of poetry from Of Wings and Dirt won runner up in Fathom Magazine’s Poetry Contest in 2023. A doctoral candidate in community care and counseling, Kimberly holds an M.Ed. in English and studied at Goddard’s Creative Writing MFA program. She was featured on Good Morning America for a national award and teaching through critical illness. Her poetry collection, Of Wings and Dirt, was a bestseller on the Amazon Charts in 2024 for several months. Her second book of poetry, Exalted Ground: Poems of Praise and Lament for the Living, is out now.