Itinerants

 

Itinerants

 

 Egrets are perched upon the barren boughs

Like dollops of plaster, serpent necks rising

In the form of question marks or looping

Low towards their long-tapered tails, soft

As candle wax, wreathed by water. It’s

A transient world of shared impermanence,

Withering and leaf-emptying, though

It seems each branch is bowed and

Frosted and the landscape’s been

Transformed into a luminous patch

Of monochrome. A few months from

Now, when weather hardens and the

Marsh falls back to a matted and bitter

Mixture of reeds, ice and brackish

Water, I will return to an eerie after-

World where bare, cross-limbed boughs

Are starkly pressed against a brooding

Sky, boats are grounded and placed

Belly-up near shore and a widowed

Silence induces reverie, and dream

Of the bird’s slow, laconic flight,

A heaven of manganese blue, and

Winged seeds glistening like gold

Dust in freefall towards some strange,

Palpable communion with light.

 

 John Muro

 

A resident of Connecticut, John’s a graduate of Trinity College, Wesleyan University and the University of Connecticut. His first volume of poems, In the Lilac Hour, was published last fall by Antrim House, and it is available on Amazon. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous literary journals, including River Heron, Sheepshead, Third Wednesday, Moria, Ariel Chart and the French Literary Review.