Take this with you; it may be
all we can keep of our dalliance here
in this quiet valley of rumpled sheets
and twining limbs, briefly verdant
with our cries. Already the sun’s light
motets (first strains of our mourning)
warn us how the coming day
would cast this latest budding instant
far into the past, beyond this precipice,
the present—insistent cliff edge
from which the uncertain rubble
of moments cracks and crumbles,
chasing us up the stony face of the future.
New Year’s Day on Country Road
Was it the brick red-shingles
of the farmhouse roof blazing
above fields of yellow stalks,
the sweep of barren trees sloping
down to meet the iceless stream,
or the faint imprint of winter’s moon
on the afternoon’s pale atmosphere?
Perhaps it was the sight of all these
met at once that stopped my breath
as we crested the hill.
My wife tells me
these thoughts lead nowhere, that beauty
must transcend full understanding
or be marred. She smiles at me,
lips like camellia blooms, hair dark
as a bay mare, eyes little umber stars,
her face—her face just like this road.
CP
David Oestreich lives in northwest Ohio with his wife and three children. His work has appeared in Ruminate, Umbrella, Minnetonka Review, Eclectica, among others.
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