RockPaperPoem

 

Is There A Word?

by Kevin Burris

 

For the mystery of this pine needle
conjured in the air by the invisible
hands of spider’s silk.

For this lazy breeze stirring
late summer leaves in the cottonwoods,
the reddening edges of sugar maples.

For these circles surprising the surface
of a pond’s astonished face,
bluegills feeding or a turtle

periscoping its painted head
to peek at the world.
For the complaints of a train

shushed by miles of disapproving forest
or for the yard’s flowered wind spinner
trading rotation for the dark oscillation

of its poorly planted green plastic stem.
Is there a word for this drifting
shadow of a red-tailed hawk

riding the late morning thermals
searching the air, hunting
for something in the bright silence there?


Kevin Burris lives in southern Illinois. His work has appeared in Southern Poetry Review, Poetry East, Atlanta Review, and many others. His first poetry collection, The Happiest Day of My Life, was published in 2016 by FutureCycle Press.


 

 

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