Summer Morning, Stewart Glen

Two snowy egrets are a slash of beauty

in the heart of the lake in the heart of the glen.

They step—step--step, eyes nailing the depths.

Two white birds paint wavering echoes in the water.

Sun-turned morning glories sing back their glow,

swinging open to the potential of day on the shore.

 

Somewhere close, a little girl feels their beauty so hard,

she aches for something beyond language, wider than oxygen.

 

Egrets flex and extend the machinery of their legs,

prying the shallows for life that brings them life:

the fish, the frogs. The lake in the glen chimes with flowers

and birds and captures the slow faces of clouds.

 

The little girl inhales the breath of lake, plants, sun.

She lives in the body of an old woman.

Mud strokes her bare feet, cattails sway beneath dragonflies.

If only she could dwell inside this magic all the time.

 

For a few moments, the entire world rests

in perfect balance between itself and a forgotten child.

 

For a few moments, a melancholy girl with a heart too broken

to hold all her love inside becomes a white egret, asking for

nothing more than this wet moment in this very place.

In wonder, she spreads wide her wings.

 

Jennifer Pratt-Walter, ⓒ 2024

Summer Night on the Porch

We sit on the porch and watch the sun harvest the last

of the light, you here because I pulled you outside to quietly

ponder the feel of time stroking our arms.

 

I would gladly trade a year of my life just to sit

on this porch with you, breathing in the mimosa flowers,

the old white dog shedding her hair all over our feet.

 

I would lean back in grandpa’s wooden chair not minding

the hardness because you are near, and hear the first cricket of summer

begin his luminous song.

 

We could sit here remembering the weight of all our years,

then, a meteor!  And our hands would reach out to each other,

fingers linking as if they had minds of their own.

 

J. Pratt-Walter, ⓒ 2023

The Harp of Summer

In the meadow the orchard grass

stands tall as July, tickling the belly

of a glad old rescue horse.

 

I lift my face to the light, eyes closed,

but I can still see.  The red color of life

illuminates my eyelids, my own circulation

sharing what it feels like to speak

with the noonday sun.

I will drink this good glowing light.  I will

inhale it to survive the unspoken hardships.

 

The great harp of summer, the insects and birds,

resounds with silver glissandi.  The velvet grass

bends to the wind like I lean to your speech,

faint and a little garbled.  You had a

stroke; you still haven’t accepted that

six years later.

 

But the whispering leaves still unwrinkle their glory.

The green apples are hopeful syllables clustering

on the old Gravenstein.  Some have already fallen.

But we are still here together. The sun plays upon us

evenly.  Pushing your chair, we come out into

that grand orchestra of life.

I can hear gratitude somewhere inside me.

 

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2023