Schug - At gloaming: poems

At Gloaming Poems by Larry Schug North Star Press of St. Cloud, Inc. St. Cloud, Minnesota Front cover photo: Larry Schug Author photo: Juliann Rule Copyright 2014 Larry Schug Print ISBN 978-0-87839-748-8 ebook ISBN: 978-0-87839-978-9 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or book reviews. First Edition: March 2014 Published by North Star Press of St.

Cloud, Inc. P.O. Box 451 St. Cloud, MN 56302 northstarpress.com Dedicated to Juli There is no poetry without you. Other Books By Larry Schug Published by North Star Press: Scales Out of Balance: Poems by Lawrence Schug (1990) Caution: Thin Ice: Poems by Lawrence Schug (1993) The Turning of Wheels: Poems by Larry Schug (2001) Arrogant Bones: Poems by Larry Schug (2008) Nails: Poems by Larry Schug (2011) Acknowledgements The following poems or versions thereof were originally published in the following print or electronic journals or anthologies. Thank you to all the editors, patrons and readers of these publications.

Nude Modeling and The Implications of Washing Dishes in Studio 1 . Etched in Granite and Sharon Springs, Kansas in The Talking Stick . Thanks, Dude, The Lights Go off During the Super Bowl, In Light Of, A Place Called Ghost Ranch, Green Heron in Rain, You Wish, A Speculation on Spiders, and The Killdeer Response in Wild Goose Poetry Review . Runaway Tractor in Bareback Magazine . A Small Kindness, This and Apple Harvest in Chantarelles Notebook . The Burden of Souls and Wood Ticks, Thats Different in Cynic Caf .

An Accordion, I Think and At the Arboretum in River Poets Journal . Between the Lines in Matchbook . Mending Mittens, and Rhubarb in Your Daily Poem . Everyone Forgot in Misfits Miscellaneous . Dull Knifes Blanket and Ghost Warriors in Trajectory . Fish in Imitation Fruit .

Pretender, The Perfect Time, Apprentice Gods and Conjecture in Circle Show . Homeless in Duluth, Toads, and Memorial in Nota Bene . This Beautiful Air in New Plains Review . Sailors Becalmed, A Dream of Roger Young, You Could Fool Yourself, and One Way to Bridge a Cultural Divide in Main Channel Voices . At Gloaming in Poetry Quarterly . A Lesson in Mindfulness in A Year of Being Here .

I: An Invisible Thread Light, as a Feather Amenable to spells, omens, talismans, totems, to simple beauty, I pick up a black feather, a tatter of night fallen from a ravens cape; become mesmerized by the prism of colors it casts, this ebony feather of no more or less mystical property than anything else fallen from the sky, yet intensely significant as the feather it is, twirling between my fingertips, catching and releasing light born of darkness. Watch Yourself around Crows Everybody knows crows talk Crawk Crawk dont need no subpoena to start a raucous squawkin Dont be fooled by a crows drunken sailor walk watch yourself crows aint tattlers or tale tellers witnesses what they be sayin it like they see it keepin an ebony eye on the world The Killdeer Response Feigning a broken wing, a killdeer tries to lure me away from her nest of stones, spotted eggs hidden within. She recognizes me for what I am a predator, and though I have no intention of harm, my presence alarms her, ignites a primordial response, the same response your mother would have to a stranger lurking near your house when you were a nestling. Great Blue Heron A great blue heron hunting leopard frogs stands stick-still in green muck, one leg tucked into its breast, crested head poised like an arrow notched in a drawn bowstring. I see that silence and intensity do not guarantee the heron a meal; patience is not always rewarded. Sometimes it becomes necessary to fly to another pond, hungry.

A Lesson in Mindfulness A Buddhist monk is trying to teach me mindfulness from a book but my stomach is too full of ice cream for me to breathe properly. Outside my window, a hungry green heron, perched perfectly still, fully in his moment, surveys the pond for frogs and fish. The teacher has grown green wings, the book having folded up its feathers for the night. Green Heron in Rain The lights not right, too much glare for a photo through the rain-streaked window, and not being a painter or sketcher I turn to words to capture and convey the image of a solitary green heron, its rusty breast, pointed crest, stiletto beak, preening gray-green feathers worn like a cape; gripping a branch of a fallen aspen with long feet, orange as a prairie sunset. The steel-gray pond bubbles and ripples in the rain, backdrop of shimmering quicksilver, a scene that could move an agnostic soul to believe in the hand of some god with no religion to muddy the image, within or without. Ripples Each ripple created as geese take flight reflects its own sunset, ripple follows ripple, sunset follows sunset like days follow days, adding up to a life, your life.

You may see your life in this bruised sky of royal purple and tangerine, citrean yellow. When the water calms, slips into sleep, thats your life, too, reflected in dreams of starshine. Sandhill Cranes From the periphery of vision on a moving bicycle, the three sandhill cranes look like deer, feathers, the same cinnamon color deer don in early summer, catching sun; their postures, long necks bent to the ground like grazing deer, before I notice the rose-colored berets they wear, as they lift their heads from a low spot in an alfalfa field, looking down long beaks, warily watching me. I slow, pedal past them quietly as I can, out of respect, perhaps reverence for their magnificence of essence, fear for how perilous is their existence, thankful for proof of being, cranes and mine, as we each acknowledge the other, eyes meeting. Clouds A bushy-browed old man chases a white poodle across a blue meadow though he knows white clouds wont return any more than his youth or bad dogs will, no matter how loud he rumbles. Fluffy! Damn you, Fluffy; you get your ass back here.

Come on, Fluffy, dang you. Fluffy! Fluffy! Rain Delay rain rain rain rain rain delay rain delay rain delay rain delay rain delay rain delay rain delay rain delay raindelay raindelay raindelay raindelayraindelayraindelayraindelay delay delay delay rain rain rain delay rain delay rain delay rain rain rain de lay rain de lay Play Ball! February Blue Its February 23rd, a Saturday, in Avon, Minnesota; the snow is up to my ass deep, but the sky is blue, February blue, a shade paler than June blue, but full with promise of Spring. If I position myself just so at my writing table, all I see is sky. With the first spring training game playing on the radio, I imagine a towering fly ball climbing into my field of blue vision, I imagine a centerfielder in Florida, palm trees waving in a warm wind beyond the outfield fence, pulling his sunglasses over his eyes, pounding his glove three times before gathering in that fly ball like people believe god gathers in souls, never making an error. Sharon Springs, Kansas The sky blows like a blue blanket hanging on a clothesline on the outskirts of Sharon Springs, a horizon youll never reach even at eighty miles an hour; and you dont care because youre from Minnesota, where youre always looking inward, the tall trees holding up their arms, blocking every horizon, preventing you from seeing too far ahead or behind. You think if you awoke under a sky this wide every morning of your life, things would be different with you.

Moon Haiku a crescent moon hangs in ethereal blue sky miracle of light This Pale Moon Floating Its just the view from my point of view, just geometry, really, the work of gravity, this pale moon, barely visible, floating in blue sky. Mathematics could explain the moon moving in its orbit of the planet, but math cant explain beauty, the stirring of tides in the soul, why I call a crescent moon ethereal, light, a miracle. Poetry doesnt explain it either, though poetry reveals what knowledge conceals. Tango Luna What if instead of playing golf, the astronauts would have danced on the moon; done clumsy pirouettes in bulky spacesuits, simple box steps kicking up moon dust in starlight instead of just that one giant step? A slicing golf ball, even hit on the moon inspires no one. They couldve danced a lunar tango in blue-green earthlight, leaving a pattern of intricate footprints that wouldve set everyone on our little planet dancing the same dance, the way we used to when the moon was full. While Watching the Leonid Meteor Shower Im lying on the lawn, head propped on a stone, while Orion stalks the Great Bear, Sirius, the star dog, at his side.