by John Robinson
September Witch Light
Fifty-four degrees this Friday in September,
a partial rainbow above trees.
The house is silent,
except
a kind of whale call from the refrigerator.
Lights flicker now and then.
Appalachian twilight tints low clouds,
pale, ocherish lime,
swirls of blue here and there.
Pallor sky emits a mist of rain,
a whisper of creeks.
Far away,
a crow.
Through the heater, I hear a radio’s muted music.
I never watch tv. Leaves are falling.
They blanket the ground in pearls of green.
***
Winter in Point Pleasant, West Virginia
Along the avenue, snow covers everything;
clumped, swollen, crystalline globs in delicate shells of ice.
A mitten disrupts that universe of cold.
Sunlight reflects in brighter forms, blasts through separate phases of the day,
changes in its sameness of the moment,
emblazons all in balmy tones.
Eves begin to drip.
A mind eases, warmth takes hold.
Golden, shattered rays become formless as thought,
elude winter,
as inferior attitudes
brood upon this formlessness,
drudge the sky beyond distant ridges,
lingers before all creation,
shifts into faded tones of evening and the absence of light.
***
Transmogrify of Trees
This effect of sun’s descent creates abstract images,
casting every earthen object
with elongated shadows in late, autumn evening
across the campus lawn.
Indifferent moods observe that change
among red, ocher brickwork
where light has drawn
shaded traceries upon high windows of Old Main.[1]
They span, as if in harmony, exposed,
sprawled along Gothic, pristine panes of glass.
A mind inclines toward regal thoughts,
reposed above the green Aurora,
a Lincoln Continental parking pass.
This image lures a solemn mood,
conceived where veils of limbs manifest a matrix of shapes.
Dusk withdraws distinctions,
reclaims these darkened branches at gable’s edge,
where only light escapes.
[1]The primary historical, architectural structure at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia that houses the offices for enrollment, funding and other aspects of student life on campus.
