Preludes
By Stephen Mead
(“Ridding the house of leavening was an act of remembrance.” Susan Vreeland, Girl in Hyacinth Blue)
Bittersweet returns, small gourds, orange & red, solar-glowing in themselves.
So the roadside vines become cornucopia in Fall’s aureate.
Parlor lamps reflect that from cottages to high-rises
as if hidden windmills in this darkness were keeping some secret afloat islands.
The words Antwerp or Amsterdam come to one’s tongue as naming a longing
barley-hardy through brewer’s yeast.
Drink the mead’s feast then, loosening pigeons from attic coops,
those kept-in bins of a soul’s unnoticed stock.
When such private harvest is finally horizon-taken the whooshing carriers coo
like migrating Anne Frank after Anne Frank in a pilgrimage of protection.
Harm is past, the carillon sounds out to the distant pier
bonging back its bopping skiffs of wishbone prows.
To stand here facing seaward is to become perseverance for four seasons more.
On the wind drifts in snow, the wet scents falling feathery as wings
to gather gentleness & melt in swift black currents.
Bio: Resident artist/curator for The Chroma Museum, Stephen Mead has intermittently been submitting multi-genre work for publication going on four decades. He remains grateful to all of the editors who have given his art and writing a good home as now, a retiree, he continues to try and sell his poetry-art hybrids and novels via CreateSpace, https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B002P5TVQC/allbooks
Author’s Note:
Inspiration:
But for Grace
No Lamentations, the usual sorrow resounding
as a bed of dread so tempting to stay in,
forgetting how a falling star ionizes its path
through black that the world’s turning enlarges.
Picture it: a planet’s dust speck suddenly receiving light
enough to flash so briefly it still steals beyond depression
& lasts in canyons of air.
Afterward the iron sky has something of gentleness
beyond passion’s electricity stirring neck hairs
& backs of knees.
Wonder then, about the progress of pilgrims
balancing pestilence or perseverance
perhaps even without genocide –
finding a thing to latch upon & bolt over.
Humanity, for once, can you cross
your primitive lengths to give an escape-artist-spirit pause
for rising another day?
If so, it is on such chance that we get up,
find slippers, shuffle off to preparations
which encourage lift, lift, launch.
