Penumbra and the Cellar Door
Pretty word, Penumbra, deserving of a poem
and Cellar Door, two more together, a gift from
some English teacher many many years ago when
I was in third grade, she said the words and said
they were so lyrical and some words, when combined
had that magic beyond the meaning, it cut a pathway
in my mind, though it puzzled me for years until it
didn't and I understood some of what she meant.
The eclipse mooned Kansas yesterday and with the
cardboard eyewear I registered the slight scythe of
sun, the crescent slimmer than any moon on any
Arab flag, and then the word Penumbra flared around
the full black moon, and grass was individualized, no
longer just a pasture, but single stems dimensional.
My horses grazed around me, their grass-pull
squeaks the only sound, one gazed around when
darkness rose among the brome, and said the equine
equivalent of hmmm,
went back to grazing. I may
have had a rapture of the dark where I quit breathing
for a moment, but it passed with the moon, and time
began for me again. Thin tattered veils of clouds slid
high and fast across the moonbit sun then it was whole
again and so was I. Penumbra Cellar Door I prayed.
Guinotte Wise
Guinotte Wise writes and welds steel
sculpture on a farm in Resume Speed, Kansas. His short story collection (Night
Train, Cold Beer) won publication by a university press and enough money to fix
the soffits. Three more books since. A Pushcart nominee, his fiction and poetry
have been published in numerous literary journals including Atticus, The
MacGuffin, Santa Fe Writers Project, Shotgun Honey and The American Journal of
Poetry. His wife has an honest job in the city and drives 100 miles a day to
keep it. Some work is at http://www.wisesculpture.com
Tags:
Poetry