Bar Harbor Morning
October
sun
with
cherry nap-broom
sweeps
away the fog,
slides
down through sieve
of
oak to bog-shrub,
paints
gold the roan-red
of
the garden benches.
Now
burn and mauve invigorate
the
tree-wind waltz
into
euphoria;
the
sky
is
a crazed cadmium blaze,
saturates
the waking sea.
The Blank Canvas
It's
white. It's clear.
It
doesn't defy logic
but
it sure does a number on imagination.
Where
do the brush strokes go?
And
what color? What shape?
A
sparrow alights on the window sill,
fully
formed.
A
song rises up from the stereo
in
the flat below,
perfectly
produced,
not
a note out of place,
not
a harmony misplaced.
The
beginning goes begging.
The
end can only sneer.
A Bear’s Visit
It's
the night before
a
dotted line
of
bear-prints in the snow
informs
us
we
had a visitor
to
the camp.
It's
when the world
and
all its hearts pounding
and
its chests heaving
and
all its mouths devouring
is
huddled tight and warm
inside
this sleeping roll.
It's
when the smell, the shape
of
each other sucks us in
and
we hear and feel
no
other beasts
but
who we are.
It's
the night before
the
depth of that spoor,
the
scattered, disheveled
state
of our belongings,
oblige
us to fill in the details
sharp
claws ripping
at
the bag of apples,
foaming
jaws snapping closed
over
the exploding fruit.
It's
the night
we
wonder
if
this is as good
as
it gets.
Come
morning,
we
know it was…
but
just.
John Grey
John Grey is an Australian poet,
US resident. Recently published in Midwest Quarterly, Poetry East and North
Dakota Quarterly with work upcoming in South Florida Poetry Journal, Hawaii
Review and Roanoke Review.