Ekphrasis on an Imagined Pastoral Landscape

Photo by Siobhan Flannery on Unsplash
Ekphrasis on an Imagined Pastoral Landscape

we diminish beneath happiness
without you she
considers the unfocused clouds
blueprints
madness and prophecy
run coldly
past the night forest
the slight rosary of the stars
your treetop microscope
looks through
a cathedral organ toward
organisms whose function
we have yet to discern
you close up your glance
put down her attention
look for instructions
find only bone

Published on The Laundry Line, 18 November, 2025. 

Drowning

Photo by Camara Negra on Unsplash
Drowning

To drown is to fall 
beneath the surface.
To linger below
in the silence
with the mud anchored weeds 
floating aloft from their  roots.

Do you too long to lie face down? Floating.
	Eyeing the small fish
that drift in and out of the rushes.

This pond
where the horses stand in  
the hottest part of summer evenings
as they wait for the dusk and
the waning of the heat.

They come
one after another,
head to tail,
down the single track
to bath their feet
in the cooling mud.

We sit on the screen porch and watch the trucks.
Headlights swinging down the graveled country road,
away from the pond, 
	the horses, and 
	the way the breeze sighs at the sunset.

Published on the Laundry Line, 11 November, 2025.

News – October 2021

Photo by Susan Jones on Unsplash
News - October 2021

Dear Joe, 

I am sorry that I forgot to call you on Sunday.
The weather here is changing;
summer is ending;
tomorrow the first fall storm arrives.

The trees aren’t turning color so much 
as losing color.
The ferns bend 
under the weight 
of the rain that drops 
from the trees.
Leaves fall 
into the mud and become 
soggy. It rains too much here for 
any kind of fall crispness.

We continue to function under 
the increasingly porous lock-down, 
masks at the ready.
They will make dating 
our pictures easier
for our grandchildren,
	if there are any pictures,
	if there are any grandchildren.

Just now there’s a bit of sun
and I wonder—how are you?
Has the season begun to turn there?

Published on The Laundry Line, 4 November, 2025.