Red Car Renaissance

 

  We walked into the parking lot

after 10 o’clock mass on Sunday.
A car’s blur crossed our path
so close I felt the heat of the sun
in the hot wind off its fender.
They only meant to scare us.
I felt then what my prayers might have been.
  From: “Little Red Tangrams’
 by Dara Wier

To the Moon

 

 

  The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees.

The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas.
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding—
         Riding—riding—
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.
  [excerpt] The Highwayman
  By: Alfred Noyes

 

Intent

In a landscape of having to repeat

BY MARTHA RONK

In a landscape of having to repeat.
Noticing that she does, that he does and so on.
The underlying cause is as absent as rain.
Yet one remembers rain even in its absence and an attendant quiet.   
If illusion descends or the very word you’ve been looking for.
He remembers looking at the photograph,
green and gray squares, undefined.
How perfectly ordinary someone says looking at the same thing or   
I’d like to get to the bottom of that one.
When it is raining it is raining for all time and then it isn’t
and when she looked at him, as he remembers it, the landscape moved closer   
than ever and she did and now he can hardly remember what it was like.

 

Maybe Next Time

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   
    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
    And treat those two impostors just the same;   
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools…
   From ‘IF’ by Rudyard Kipling