A journal of art + literature engaging with nature, culture, the environment & ecology

Two Poems by Thomas Bacon

Thomas Bacon, Alaska, USA

 

Encounter

 

Silently the sun peels the clouds

away from the snag of hillside trees,

not a twig snap nor a whisper

of leaf against leaf,

 

the sky barely blue enough

to cross moss torn roots 

and slippery stones.  

            I've heard

 

men once became bears

and bears became men,

sharing the cycle of seasons,

but legends and history have diverged.

 

Ancient stories are denied

even as banished spirits, now invisible,

may still walk immortal among us.

Warm paw prints in the mud.

 

I imagine watching eyes

as the earth spins today

into the web of the past.

I imagine the stench of wet fur,

 

the rumble of growls

and the clacking of teeth

              as time retreats,

slowly backing down the trail.

The Four Seasons

Spring blooms purple

crocuses, and whales 

 

breach the sunlight.

Passion and play,

 

eagles soar in thermals

over new nests,

 

circles of thought returning

to the first letter of the first word.

 

A poem, unwritten,

waiting for coffee to cool

 

or a leaf to shape the breeze

to enchantment's end.




 

Summer breaks blue

with billows of thunder

 

filling an expectant field

overfull with thrush songs

and the sweetness of a Sitka rose.

Rain drifts from the sea,

 

slow to arrive. In the shed

the rake, shovel and hoe rust,

waiting for less lazy days

as garden weeds celebrate

 

reprieve. Green grows abundant.

As promised, life's bounty returns.




 

Autumn splashes orange:

a pumpkin tethered to a leathered vine,

a leaf turning on a brittle twig,

and the sun cooling down into the sea.

 

Watchful eyes of the harvest moon,

the crows have flown far away

to richer feasts beyond the frost.

Firewood stacked cord by cord

 

and pantry stocked can by can,

the salmon have spawned.

Gulls pick the remaining bones.

Sweet smells of decay cloy the air.




 

Winter gathers white

fog, sheens of collected mist

chilling life's facade.

 

As the earth freezes

inside leaf litter and mold,

 

some seeds will survive

the sharpness of cold

 

winds carving silence, sculpted

shadows in the ice.

 

Snow-covered branches,

a flock of mallards swims near.

Ripples bend the light.

 

 


  

Thomas R. Bacon lives in Sitka, Alaska, an isolated island community bound by wilderness forest and the Pacific Ocean. His work has appeared in Cirque and in Tidal Echoes.

Another Journey

Two poems by Nisha Bolsey