Between a Rock and a Heart Place (PDF)

BENEDICTION (p. 7)

("St. Anthony went to the mouth of the river by the sea, and began to call the fishes in God`s name.")

Little Flowers of St. Francis

Evening genuflects,

While I kneel at the creek`s edge

Watching bluegill rise to tossed petals,

Wanting to write words, right as rain

Smooth as skipped stones—

And release them when the aim

And balance are right.

Fish rising to the rings of forever

As they must have done

To the poor man of Padua`s blessing,

While gathering prayers in the dark.

BEERCANNUS americanus

You can find it

where the pocked faces

of NO HUNTING signs

stare dimly

from the fenceposts

leaning into autumnal shadow,

where a boy with a .22

once skittered

a Schlitz can up

the path,

his only kill

bullet-ridden

and bent,

hardly noticed now

amid the oak leaf litter,

so rich with loam

and the dark power

of moist duff

that mushrooms emerge,

fashioned like ears

pressed to the cool

forest canopy.

Listening closely,

they might hear

a chamber being loaded,

the silence

taking aim.

Pointblank.

Dead center.

SCARECROW`S DREAM

A burlap vision

of fallow stalks

that spear and

stubble the furrows

now rusted

huddled hayricks,

whispering intimations.

Smashed pumpkins

puckered to

cruel air,

even the sky

corncrib dry,

where a seedless

wind snags

like barbed wire

and from the field`s

frayed edge: a 12

gauge blast.

A crow

caws

caws

caws

its wings sweeping

at the sunset

with the scythe of song.

Frost etching

your paned landscape

(boundaried by splitrail

fences)

then a warm handprint

melting it to clarity,

twilight`s kneeling

shadow nuzzles

the cold glass

and reflected back

is a daguerreotype

plate of your face.

Smoke whisps

from a woodburning

cookstove:

slow vapor-breath

of grazing

Dieses eBook können Sie uneingeschränkt auf allen Geräten der tolino Familie lesen. Zum Lesen auf sonstigen eReadern und am PC benötigen Sie eine Adobe ID.