Waiting For The Space Station To Pass By
We stand side by side, watch wavelets
lick the shoreline, sailboats tack
back and forth across the sound.
Facing you is too risky, catching your eye
for even the slightest moment
reduces me to a tiny pile of ash
scattered by a breath a sigh.
Your own need to remain parallel
undisclosed, we stand — a person's width
of space between — stare at the Olympics
their folds, edges, crags smoothed
to a plum silhouette pasted on the evening sky.
Our conversation spins out, dances
with fractals of sunlight across rough water.
We talk until the sun is down
and stars appear. Wind, sand, salt
sting my eyes, as they strain
to find the point where our gaze meets
because it must, because everything bends
eventually — light, space, hearts.
In These Woods
the sun does not rise,
but descends from tips
of pine and fir, slaloms
through tangled limbs, sidles
into the shadowy kitchen.
Hot mid-day sun drenches
the mossy lawn, iridesces
off hummingbird throats,
frees the scent of heirloom
roses then slips behind a row
of blowsy cedars who lift
their skirts to offer glimpses
of golden afternoon meadow.
Spangles of evening light climb
a scaffold of branches, perch
on nodding leaders, vanish
leaving flat silhouettes
of pine and fir pasted
on a darkening sky. The sun
unseen behind distant hills
sets these woods ablaze.
Shaggy tree bark ignites,
a parting salute, then night.
Suzannah Dalzell lives on Whidbey Island north of Seattle, Washington where she divides her time more or less equally between writing and restoring wetlands. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Flyway: Journal of Writing and Environment, Pilgrimage Magazine, Cascade: Journal of the Washington Poets Association, EarthSpeak Magazine, and The Raven Chronicles.