Christina Murphy

 

End of Summer

The sunlight changes with the end of summer
into something softer, making simple scenes
into Impressionist paintings of modulated
light and images. When fall starts, the colors
will be sharper—the deeper pigments of
dying leaves and trees seeking dormant
winter lives. We will delight in those colors
but remember with fondness the softer lights
of one season giving way to another, one sun
shining in memory of an intensity that once was

Watching

Large black birds circle the river
We thought they were hawks until your niece,
the veterinarian, told us they were raptors
What? we say. Buzzards.
We watch them through our binoculars, noting
their graceful form and beautiful beaks
We wish they were hawks. It is so hard to
surrender an illusion


CP

Christina Murphy lives and writes in a 100 year-old Arts and Crafts style house along the Ohio River. She continues to be amazed at how the Arts and Crafts movement found such artistic integrity (and solace) in straight lines and simple (yet complex) forms. Her writing appears or is forthcoming in, most recently, ABJECTIVE, A cappella Zoo, PANK, Splash of Red, LITnIMAGE, Blue Fifth Review, POOL: A Journal of Poetry, MiPOesias, and Counterexample Poetics. Her work has received two Editor’s Choice Awards and Special Mention for a Pushcart Prize.