Kentucky Mayday Poem by Edith Scott Johnson

Along the Kentucky River on first May;
You strode tall, I stumbled, over roots
of old oaks that ridged across our rough path:
bright in new leafy growth,
Nature's cynics giggled, girdled, showing their ages
in deep rings and dingy bark.
Then ritual cries of Isis rose up in me
and I boldly wished to kiss you
beside a cold brook
where willow trees stuck long-fingered,
delicately-nailed branches into very springs
of rivers under granite; Oh! how hard the memory lingers
of that freezing, rushing passion
gushing out of dark caves in sheer gray rock.