Meeting Light - Raphael Block

[Larry Robinson]

Meeting Light
 
 
Through the windshield, light gleaming                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
on the fields, the light green willow leaves
running along the creeks
seem brighter set
against the just beginning greening hills
 
dotted with oaks, cows, sheep,
small clumps of shy-hoofed deer
chomp in well-manured pastures
as I, too, stand richly fed.
 
Vultures overhead wing soundless circles,
a perched hawk, red-tailed, its haunting call withdrawn,
spies smaller prey;
black wings beat gusts, and clatter                                                                                     
onto walnut limbs to caw and cackle.
 
I loom with the hunter, quail
with its prey, prattle with companions
until our souls are full-flush-fleshed.
 
By Walker Creek, a thousand white woolen
eyes crown coyote brush,
dried fennel stalks drop silent seed
among these wild ones I flourish and breathe
under sun-fog-rain sway.
 
Coiling bends sound the broadening bay
whose undulating light ripples peep between,
lending ease and space
against the pine-clad ridges
as gusting sun plays upon my skin into my depths.
 
Sprawled on the verge, a car-killed deer
awaits its airborne team with sharpened smell
to pick it clean. All seeps, sings and bounds in me.
Is it the light or the light
that I am leaving?
 
On boughed knees rest old trees sinking
into softened sod, the turn of seasons watch.
Their path is slowly set, while mine is filled
with urgency to laud and praise, give back
one speck, one jot
of all you pour into my marrowed bones.

	- Raphael Block