John Muro

Egret

A sun so bright it seems To burn blue from air, While here, by tidal waters, A vivid plume of cloud- Melt, a buoy’s body, Legs as thin as the Shafts of a compass And a face that’s fused With the sensuous neck. The head now appears Too far ahead of its body As it leans to surface, Patient as a muse, Hunched until instinct Compels the quick, Lyrical thrust of bill, Like a piston fired, Whistles thru the water’ s Canopy of oliveGreen bladder-wrack Neon shimmer Extinguished in Single swallow And the lethal Gaze soon returns To water, much The way memory Might pause in Pursuit of color, Touch or voice.

John Muro

Homestead

Ghostly birds drifting lazily to air, Like a fragrance that’s been Eased from earth and holds near To this day’s downfallen heaven.

A few, solitary clouds appear In sun-silvered drift, blend Into a smoke-like feathering That wreathes the horizon.

The house, too, seems prepared To drift and I also sense It’s loose, untethered stairs Would rise and extend

Up into this basin of rare, Pearl-blue sky where they’d bend, Bearing the all of it, towards the nearer Stars aglint, arcing in perilous ascent.

John Muro

Preserved

An intricate necklace adorns the lake, Its combed strands of pearled white Advancing earth, though the center Pulp softly churns. The ice makes For a half-healed and lightless Surface. The cold reassures; An after-life gray will overtake The lake’s receding brightness And still the far interior.

Random, pendant flakes Adrift in tangled flight; They rise, fall, linger And seem to congregate Like moths in mid-air despite A sudden down-rush Of wind. All’s in a state Of snow-bright darkness Never knowing, for sure,

If light’s a thing let in or out.

John Muro