digital collage by C. B. Harris, from images on Pixabay
Silver
"An everywhere of silver, With ropes of sand" ~ Emily Dickinson
When I wake up in the morning,
I bend my ear to the faint ring, the purest
note I can hear. It makes my atoms settle
in a constellation of warmth,
as of all the tarnish removed
from our world.
If dreams have come, I shake off
those sham tunes. Better angels are singing
than backup horns and memory’s grinding gears.
As I flex and stretch, I let the house finches’ arias
polish the shine on my belief.
This effort goes deeper than my bones ache.
I strain to hear past my small grumbles
and my reward is a song inside cloudy thoughts,
a majestic emptiness, a vast silver
news of ends and beginnings,
their circularity, a grand design ringing
in the cricket’s call and dawn chorus.
A vast embrace started this world
and lives in the heart’s hum of vitality,
lodged deeper than a momentary dismay
or even a day’s bliss. We’re nothing
but this song you can hear
in the ocean of time and being,
its everywhere of silver.
Rachel Dacus is the author of six novels and four poetry collections. Rachel’s work has appeared widely in print and online journals, including Boulevard, Gargoyle, and Prairie Schooner, as well as in the anthology Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California. She lives in
the San Francisco Bay Area. Connect with her at www.racheldacus.net.
July 2024 issue
Comments