Two Sticks
Two lean sticks
descend the muddy shallows--
the great blue heron is cloud and sky
above the water's edge.
Light languors at the surface,
lulling time and sense.
The great blue heron rides the earth
like a wispy wetland willow--
at a ripple in the murk,
light breaks the plane
to grasp and swallow in its flash
what swam in blue sky's shadow.
January June
Snow sun cannot melt.
The shaded trail white,
the creek banks,
the downy air.
White caps for the owl chicks.
Nest liner supreme.
Grand sport for children
turning with the breeze.
No gutter is immune.
Screens gasp for breath.
Leaf blower blizzards
spiral into lawns.
The Avenue of Cottonwoods
strews its watery course till
green's lush primacy rights
June's January lapse.
Porch Light Tango
On our mad dalliance
throw the switch,
oh pitiless light bulb
I once thought the moon.
My true destiny fades
against your searing tongue.
Must I throw myself upon you
till I drop, battered hull
spent at your feet?
I am Progenitor Rex.
Generations unfold within me,
yet time contracts, your glow
chancing the unborn.
How heartless your heat:
I falter, I fry.
The common toad of existence
eyes me for its meal--I beg you
snare some other wayward planet
with your blazing tractor beam.
Darrell Petska's writing has appeared in Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Chiron Review, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Star 82 Review, Bird's Thumb, Verse-Virtual, and elsewhere (see conservancies.wordpress.com). Darrell worked for many years as communications editor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, leaving finally to focus on his own writing and his family. He lives in Middleton, Wisconsin.
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