Moonset

A brilliant pearl
tree-tangled
low in the sky
exhaling a sigh of peace.

Her white medicine
washes terra firma,
filling every hollow with
the promise of ascension.

© 2005 Melissa Songer

Just a short drive home

I can’t get enough of
this postcard sunset
off to my right
while rushing
amid the others.

Trying to shake off
the day’s residue -
juggled deadlines
and mixed messages;
I’m wishing for
a softer moment.

Half the fireball
gleams through
openings in the scrub,
live oaks and pines;
the horizon
swathed in pink
and violet.

Half an eye straining for
the peripheral flare
as the sun disappears.
Half a brain
planning what
tasks won’t get
done tomorrow.


© 2001 Melissa Songer

Walking the Dogs

Every day around four
they come to stare at me;
follow me around the house
expectantly - as if to say -
it’s time to go now.
I know it, but always stretch it out
another hour or so
until they are in a frenzy -
Rosie tossing her head like a filly
and Rocky spinning -
a polka-dotted dervish.
They trip me up before
I can even get to the door
as they yank me into the street.

The late afternoon sun slants
(a xanthic beam)
across the shrubbery
as the plumbago flares
into a living conflagration
of blue sparks.
The dogs pull their leashes
hard in opposite directions,
pulling me off kilter,
threatening me with the feel
of asphalt crashing into my knees;
doesn’t take much
to throw me these days.

Then I see it.
An osprey buoyant
upon the aerial currents,
wing tips spread like fingers;
gliding against the firmament,
taking my breath with it.
For a moment I see
the tops of trees and houses,
small movements on the ground -
the flash in the water.
We swoop to extract the wriggling prey
from its submerged existence,
bear it to a pine limb
and breach the scaly carcass.

The dogs tug me to the ground.


© 2000 Melissa Songer