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.