The Poetry Of..
Francis Masat.......................................................
Four Walks This Year
I. Spring Morning
With first-light, a mystery forms between fog and meadow.
Willow buds wait as if hiding inside tiny silver silk muffs.
New leaves and scented blossoms catch wisps of clouds,
letting them slip free to tumble away in slow gauzy motion.
A bird's song welcomes the pink and violet-gray dawn.
On a leaf, drops fracture new sunlight into tiny diamonds.
Hazy spots, pale lemon, dance on patches of clover and thatch;
the lazy yellow hues hypnotize when stared into for too long.
In the fresh morning light, each leaf and stone transcends
mortal sight to embed their god-like images within my spirit.
An up side down bee kicks fuzzy pollen grains into the air.
Far below, an ant scrambles out of a shadowed paw print.
In a shaded glen, daffodils bend under a late spring snow -
except for one, one that will not bend. Unannounced,
a cold shower soaks through all, then skips and flits away.
A playful breeze ripples puddles in a sparkling fresh scene.
Rain-pocked sand trails-off, stops at a glistening green verge.
A newly overturned stone reveals small, unexpected lives.
Budding fragrances mix with the soil's primordial balm.
And in each step, spring continues to grow into summer.
II. Summer Midday
Often, a midday walk includes a subtle moment, a sublime
idyllic instant, a summer scene frozen in an electrum haze,
a motionless universe. The sun seems halted for an instant,
poised for a grand astral slide into another evening's gloaming.
Even the breezes stop, hot and still, as if to catch their breath.
Awareness becomes an interloper - out of place. In the stillness
come silent moments: warm, golden-white, tranquil, at peace,
a subliminal ringing as if all life were aware, waiting - listening.
Somewhere deep in the meadow grass, a rhythmic drone begins,
rises, eases off, inviting sleep with a soft hum, humm, hummm . . . .
A pond, lacy-cut by the growth around it, reflects the sky:
I think of the times I've cut through that lace to wet my line.
Black eyes peer through thick green scum - then vanish.
On mossy logs, turtles sun, warming their dinosaur blood.
A breeze stirs the ripe grass and quivers the pond's surface.
In turn, cattails shake their burst heads, tossing their velvet
children into drafts of moist air, allowing them to drift - free.
Leaves begin to rustle: doves spiral down into blue-hued shade
as if to signal my departure before I've walked far enough.
Immersed in living colors, this path falters, yields, and ends.
III. Fall Afternoon
Querulous nesting crows have left, and there is time now,
near the end of this year, before winter's white mantel settles,
for a reflective walk through long-shadowed fall sunsets.
I've been on a hard-packed course, trod by so many before me,
though wild grass bends inward, intent on taking it all back
Glorious midday summer walks are past - seasons change.
In the pond, a wild goose floats, white chest to the sky -
its black head submerged forever now. Drifting billows
are mirrored in photographic perfectness; images morph,
shimmer in a breeze, reform and float on like memories.
Beyond the pond is a stream that I've had to cross too often -
without making a splash. Further on, the stream roars
over steep falls as though each drop screams in delight.
Dashed on rocks and sand, frothed to brilliant white,
it finally calms and continues, persistent in its seaward flight.
Geese appear, their wings seaming the clouds like old quilts.
A leaf, as red-veined as I, lilts slowly into my weathered hand.
A brown field gifts warmth and quiet: hazy, golden-hued
stillness that carries the full ripe fragrances of a mature life.
A gust stirs the amber grasses, rustles the crowns of old oaks
shining like blood red diadems; it is time to move on. Still,
I see so many places in which I want to spend more time, but
I also see that I will not get to the green hills in the distance.
IV. Winter Dusk
The horizon gleams in pink and gold strips above far hills
turned from violet to dark-purple in the last rays of sunset.
Along the river trail, dusk turns a snowy plain to blue-gray,
its farthest edge a black lace filigree of tangled bare branches.
Unannounced, a sharp chill wind cuts deeply through me.
Beside a field are untended graves - turned back to nature.
The river's ripples re-form the moonlight into white satin stairs
that dissolve in wrinkled pewter sheets along the far bank.
Beneath an old bridge, bubbles float under a wing of crystal ice.
Their mergers mimic the flow of past and future into oneness.
Below the bank, mysterious eddies twist, persist in their flow.
I walk on to find new snow around an old, often viewed pond.
The whiteness beckons against the pond's dark glassy surface
that reflects thin cirrus clouds banding across the night sky.
As their haze moves off a bright glaring moon, the sky darkens
as if ink were soaking the heavens. The enormous blackness
reminds me of their ageless being, of our own small brief light.
I stop to - to what? The now is past - my future has arrived.
I try to walk on, but realize my time and my path have run out.
I see that there is nowhere left to walk - here.
I am happy, though, with my journeys, with 'most all my walks.
Perhaps, if I'm allowed, I'll take a new path - next year.
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