Full Moon in Late Winter/First Time: Katherine L. Gordon

 

Full Moon in Late Winter

Like a communion wafer

perfectly round and subtly silver.

I swallow it for transubstantiation.

It is inside my spirit

I am inside its ancient magic

for a transient moment

a piece of immortality,

the sun embraces me

through this deceptive reflection,

transmitted light

I am too frail to seize,

but I carry this moon sphere

into an undiscovered mystery,

a stream of shimmering dreams.

First Time

The first time I heard rattling

on the tin roof of a farm attic

I understood rain:

that tidal tattoo scattering

the clouds of my mind

into a million pilgrim orbs.

Water to awaken, nourish,

explore, imprint.

I became a wildflower.

Katherine L. Gordon

from Awareness Poems

SureWay Press, 2024

Autumn Ducks, Late October: James Deahl

For Raymond Souster

January 15, 1921 - October 19, 2012


Another autumn, and mallards
blanket these secluded waters
of Chipican, sheltered from
the sharp gusts off Lake Huron.

They arrived from up north on their
journey to the Gulf of Mexico.
In afternoon’s sun they bob
on water surrounded by the gold

and burnt red of maples,
the yellows of locusts touched by frost.
All our flowers are finished,
even the brave asters have folded.

You have been gone six years, Ray,
and every year at migration time
your spirit comes on autumn’s wind
with the mallards on their way south.

Ducks tarry on Chipicon, safe
before whisking away as winter
advances with its teeth of ice;
they sanctify each year since you were here.

from Awareness Poems

Katherine L. Gordon and James Deahl

SureWay Press, 2024