an eagle in
flight, place to place
amid
spaces, finding form in motion,
being just
to be and breathe
simplicity,
outside the spin
of a world
in chaos.
tip up the
shade and hide.
The blue mountain
sits rigid,
the amber sky
continues to stare down
and the dusky
sea is ever in roar.
Anchors in,
and we are still.
with and
without direction,
here,
there, and the wherewithal.
Seeking
the compass, due north,
we stand. Breathe
in the sea air,
taste the
salt. And wait.
circling as bees do, nectar strewn
between.
what may be. But nothing
is set in stone.
try to see, but we are blind.
We get on anyway.
gives way when we wanna sway,
and we just are.
a something unsaid, a depart from
composure, the raw,
outside the goldfish bowl,
skin and bones and all we are.
but it won’t return, and who we were
meant to be is memory.
drift in the light of the splayed moon,
and cast a coin at maybe.
Stone. It’s only stone.
A rock. Grit. Edgy as hell.
It can’t roll unless you push it.
It won’t stick unless you make it.
etching words, pictures drawn,
sunken stick forms, the unrequited.
when we don’t ever need to.
as light moves and breathes and eels,
yet the stone will always be.
Stowaway
kept it locked in a still warm box,
sealed with a charm, not a kiss,
considered it his.
rise on the tides, sweep out to sea,
whisper incantations on severed waves,
things even the gulls cannot hear.
she holds out her hands for the doves,
the silken plumes of butterflies,
tugs on her rusted anchor.
free her spirit to seek out the dawn,
when he can. When he knows
he won’t feel lost in the silence.
He guards the hidden hollows,
cobwebbed snags in window frames,
corners asleep in the acreage,
where the hundreds came and went.
smell the scarlet wave of ember leaves
and disappear into the missing edges,
the past sneaking out of dank walls.
We are the mirrors of our histories,
mortality sunk, a-spiral in the smoke
perspiring through covert echoes.
dents and ingress, the expedient,
and we grow old imagining how
to weather this frigid earth.
lays heavy on our silent shoulders
not quite broad enough to take
the weight of his fate.
remember, trace the date full back
a hundred years now spent.
A twist in the past, a fork in the road.
Paper spaces
the gutter gasping over, essence of the amiss,
a picture with no smile, the sound outside of
being, the birth of columns without words.
crystal waves, they rise, stay frozen-peaked,
desert roads stretch, continue to burn and turn,
all the endings forever out of someone’s reach.
rosebud noses breaking ground. Whiskers flicker,
considering the gaps and measuring in between
the spaces without and the spaces within.
where one star may lead, the others distract.
We nestle in the trees with the souls of those long past.
Branches will not yield. Roots too long entangled.
Clouds
revisit ambition in a fog-blown glass,
drift among the old ones tugging your soles,
their roots deep, too far away.
motion in the wide ocean that empties out.
Idle. Your stories ask to be read,
yet you leave them in a darkened room.
hours of light cascades, the wretched waiting,
for you are drawn, imagined, talked upon,
but you are not how you are sketched.
This background shifts. Awaken movement.
He is at liberty, and yet he is not.
He lives, and yet he cannot sink inside it.
On the surface, a simmer,
the circular line invisible.
He will follow til the end of his days,
rest with the sick, mourn upon the dead.
stripped of youth’s belief that we are stone.
Phantoms
Timeless. Where the horizon shrinks,
where the sky sprinkles silver lace,
once-eager waves reaching into peace.
We are lifted. We are something other.
He gathers his footprints across the sand,
a solitary walk. A wander into brilliance,
the hand of the sun’s rays shining down.
And strangers are met without speech.
Wet costumes cling to vibrant bodies,
perspiration glitters, laughter unites.
The old and wise sit back against the rock,
feel its coldness seep into their skin,
hats askew, towels drawn, toes dug deep.
We think upon the sun. Upon time.
Linger awhile in the reflection of ourselves.
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, August 8, 2024
Ricochet
Life ricochets,
outside of warmth,
footsteps upon an enamel floor,
wrinkles cast in this idle stone
we sit upon and desire upon
a crimson distant moon. Flecks dart
and reflect, this embrace of night,
Nocturne aghast at Light’s disperse.
An arc of wave rises, subsides, just is,
and I am, as I always have been,
an echo of a belief, breaths of time,
seeking the limits of what we know.
We can step out or we can step in.
I stand between the here and the other,
taste the salt of the sea, vanish a little.
