Five Sublime Poems by Marianne Szlyk

 

Once at the Dead Creek

 

Opaque waters hid tiny fish,

those I’d once counted on

to trace edges of crumpled rock,

spaces between, to flow over

greige sand on the creek bed.

 

Sulphur from last night’s fireworks

rose above clouded waters’ bustle.

Last night’s noise still thudded through

the park without birds or bugs,

without chirps that fill the swamp.

 

By the creek, vines and willows

kept their distance.  Grasses

matted and shrank from

lifeless water.  Dry flowers floated past.

One bumblebee fumbled over faded leaves.

 

Paler than those above, one branch

broke through the blank water’s surface.

The snapping turtle glanced up,

beady eyes intent on the green world

beyond the sand-colored creek.

 

Birdwatching on Friday

 

In Lent, when I’m supposed to be
fasting and praying, I see the bird
with the iridescent head and dark,
glassy eye, hop from branch
to branch to ground.

I bite into the bologna sandwich
on Wonder white with canary-colored
mustard.  The bird pauses on the ivy
in weak March sun, without fear
of our cat who used to gaze out
clicking at fat robins, at strutting crows.

This bird is not a crow.  That bird
would be heavy, like the layer
of incense that settles
in the now-empty church.
This bird takes off, past the ghosts
of feral cats who wait
for fat robins, strutting crows.

When We Walked Nowhere

 

Used to plants, we could not read stones.

Instead, we kept to the highway,

watching for snakes, imagining

we could walk past the mountains,

 

on the other side of these mirages.

There after rain, stones and snakes hid

beneath plush leaves and vast flowers.

It was January here.  It was May there.

 

Winter sun inched above our trek

but still made us thirsty,

a mile from downtown’s one store

that sold pop, not soda, not tonic.

 

I imagined I’d never see green again.

All around us fossils hid in rocks:

cycads, moss, fern fronds,

the grandparents of our plants.

 

Above the Inland Sea

 

Caterpillar clings to a thin stem,

walks upside down despite

breezes that trouble the creek.

 

Daddy long legs hides in the groove

of a rock the color of earth

the color of last year’s leaves.

 

Thinner than even the thinnest

pine needle, the spider’s leg disappears.

Snakes slither through the underbrush.

 

Pinecone balances on wood

just like the rock does on a boulder

as it overlooks the ghost of the inland sea.

 

I Imagine the Inland Sea

 

Not to listen to the sounds of others writing,

I imagine the inland sea

teeming with life, flooding the plains.

I imagine walking there.

 

I imagine the inland sea

before there were humans, before there were trees.

I imagine walking there

before there were mountains, before there were fossils.

 

Before there were humans, before there were trees,

I dip my hand into the warm, shallow sea.

Before there were mountains, before there were fossils,

I pick my way through mud and stones.

 

I dip my hand into the warm, shallow sea

so as not to listen to the sound of others writing.

I pick my way through mud and stones

teeming with life, flooding the plains.

Profile Photo by Matthew Bailey

Marianne Szlyk is a professor of English and Reading at Montgomery College. Her poems have appeared in of/with, MacQueen's Quinterly, Setu, Verse-Virtual, Sequoyah Cherokee River Journal, Bourgeon, Muddy River Poetry Review, Writing in a Woman's Voice, and the Loch Raven Review as well as a few anthologies such as The Forgotten River. Poems are forthcoming in the Sligo Review and the Beltway Poetry Quarterly. Her books On the Other Side of the Window and Poetry en Plein Air are available from Amazon.  She has also led workshops where poets write tributes to both survivors of COVID-19 and those whom we have lost.