Starlings – John Muro

 

Dispatched from dusk, an iridescent stubble

breaks over everything and lacquers the lawn,

and each inch of terrain becomes a mangle

of brunette sheen. Sodden acres are now

blanketed beneath a chattering with numbers

too vast for counting. In precipitous precision,

they rise, like a head-wind suddenly made

visible, quickly extinguishing any creases

of light as each bird binds itself to the whole,

keeping tightly to form as if something

foreign and intent on anarchy might displace

it and lead the murmuration astray, none

daring to pull opposite of their dark destiny

and fretful portage between earth and heaven.

 

---

A resident of Connecticut, John is a graduate of Trinity College, Wesleyan University and the University of Connecticut. In the Lilac Hour, his first volume of poems, was published in 2020 by Antrim House, and it is available on Amazon. His poems have been published, or are forthcoming, in journals including Euphony, Moria, Penumbra, River Heron, Sheepshead, Third Wednesday, Amethyst Review, High Window, Poetica Review and the French Literary Review. John is also a two-time 2021 Pushcart Prize nominee.

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June 13, 2022 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: animals, birds, Connecticut, creative, creativity, CT, destiny, dusk, elements, flight, John Muro, murmuration, nature, poem, poet, Poetry, starlings, terrain, US, vastness, whole, wind, writing 1 Comment

Rainfall – Ted Mc Carthy

 

I woke with an old sense

of entering a clearing

as a boat breasts a strait of reeds

from one lake to another

 

with no notion of the vastness

in front, behind; a settler

thinking himself still, feet

either side of a century,

 

belongings mere ideas again,

a scattering of atoms, a constellation;

rainfall, each drop still pure

after its million collisions.

 

 

Ted Mc Carthy is a poet and translator living in Clones, Ireland. His work has appeared in magazines in Ireland, the UK, Germany, the USA, Canada and Australia. He has had two collections published, ‘November Wedding’, and ‘Beverly Downs’. His work can be found on www.tedmccarthyspoetry.weebly.com.

March 9, 2020 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: atoms, boat, century, clearing, Clones, collisions, constellation, creative, creativity, ideas, Ireland, lake, nature, poem, Poetry, rainfall, reeds, sense, stillness, Ted Mc Carthy, thought, vastness, writing 1 Comment