ISSUE 2
Rikki Santer
Dew Point in Big Sur
At sunrise a condor soars above us,
wind courses past its wingtips, a dozen
swords swinging through the air, said
the wildlife photographer—a bird’s ancient
job to clean the carcass. Pearly gems
of dew glisten atop my camp tent, another
hymn for fleeting, and the fresh grammar
of deer hoofprints along with low growls
of thunder. Through my ear buds defiance
and sorrow swells from handwritten scores
composed by inmates of Terezin—their
symphonic will to live now breathes into
these moments of dew point, accompanied
by a first quarter moon still lingering.
Rikki Santer’s poetry has received many honors including several Pushcart and Ohioana book award nominations, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and in 2023 she was designated as Ohio Poet of the Year. Her twelfth poetry collection, Resurrection Letter: Leonora, Her Tarot, and Me, is a sequence in tribute to the surrealist artist Leonora Carrington. Please contact her through her website, rikkisanter.com.