Haibun Swan In Orange
by Joan Payne Kincaid
|
Swan alone at dinner time I begin
or twenty minutes before, a nightly speed walk...
we observe each other in the frame work of our own thought;
I cannot pause because of the heart's need to swim
its spaghetti spirals:
swan alone in orange
memory of the sunsets of another place
with four short years of love...all gone within four years
looking out an upstairs window for him forever from that twilight window.
Boats sailed orange water with stars appearing
before dinner or after;
the light fades as a jogger passes and I pick up pace
always afraid of my own imagination alone in any dark place
The mind rummages for starlight again lured by the rising moon
moving quickly the spiritual and the practical become one
swan alone in orange water
glowing white as stars and staring a small smart dark eye;
Passing the pool site where my children learned to swim
I cannot shake the sadness of my rapid- breath emptiness
swan alone in orange water navigates
and it invigorates my slow ebbing taste for the past;
only cars pass me now with harsh waltzing lanes
they aim
as if I am
a target
They come toward me too fast as if being vulnerable
doesn't matter so long as they can arrive somewhere!
swan alone
in orange water
navigates twilight
two under a high blue-silver dome
(we used to call a Magritte sky his renderings lovely
or lovelier than actuality)
for a moment
the swan is held
in streetlight reflection
the moon hangs
between
day and night
horizon loses its last pink lust as my feet sound drums
on the short boardwalk in the dark
in the dark
ducks speak
of the unknown
they speak an intelligent language make key decisions before sleep;
checking my wristwatch toward allotted twenty minute totality
resenting need of awareness of mundane time as life speeds past
street lights
create little orange wave-lips
a swan swims
Only a long line of black Plane trees whose spirits you ever hold close
protect you from streaming commuters' tunnel vision.
You have come half way with the timeless swan...
time to retrace the past...to turn back to the harbor edge
and the ducks' now invisible quacks.
the moon
is in bed
with day and night
I drive up the long hill to the cliff top house with the hungry mouth
of dinner like a contract from primordial history yet I remain where
swan alone
in orange water
navigates twilight
|
 |
|
|
Copyright © 2024 by Red River Review. First Rights Reserved. All other rights revert to the authors. No work may be reproduced or republished without the express written consent of the author. |