two poems

April is National Poetry Month. To celebrate, I’m posting two of my own poems composed in the last year. Each of these poems takes notice of a particular sighting in nature, in the first, a particularly striking sunrise in the trees, and in the second, a barely there evening moon.

Burning

early dawn
apartment courtyard
car keys, coffee cup and –
looking up, my gaze is
instantly arrested
I halt my steps in wonder
at the cluster of treetops on the hill
across the street just below the high school

the trees
are
alive
with an
unearthly
glow

red sun filtered through morning clouds
has come to rest on, around, and in
the bank of tall bare branches, still
leafless in the dying winter
now dressed with a shimmering illusion of autumn color:
red, like the image-in-negative of green leaves about to bud –
hot, like Moses’ smoldering bush unconsumed

* * *

like Moses, I stand and stare at this holy sight,
this unexpected vision,
while school buses lumber down the hill
and birds and squirrels forage the cold ground for food
and neighbors sleep –

captivated, I want to
take off my shoes
and sing.

—————————————————————-

The Moon Tonight

The moon is but a slice, a sliver, tonight,
a tiny glowing fragment, and the sky is not yet black
but deep indigo. October moves around us
in chilly shivers, and I reach for your hand,
thankful for

the quietness of your love and
the gentle approach of evening, a time to set aside sorrow
and worry and think about how birds know where
to fly, and how to get home to their treetops,

nesting among the stars and that little bit of moon,
safe, and free from care.

I want to keep on walking with you
under this indigo sky
with the feel of autumn coming on,
and evening thickening into dark,
and know in the deep places that we, too, are safe and
part of this world, part of this peace.

RRV
10/15/07