Three Poems by Lara Dolphin

 

When There Are No Cracks

 

How can you describe the burstiness of a sunset?

Biting a juicy orange might help

 

And how do you capture the colours of the ocean?

Perhaps Jennifer Higdon’s blue cathedral

may be of use

 

Everywhere is colour–your socks, this button, the neighbour’s roof–

except the stuff that’s clear like sea jellies or windows

or things that are white like clouds or glaciers or teeth

 

Wavelengths, short and long, travel and land

bouncing back to the eye where rods and cones

send signals to the brain

 

But it’s not all pigments and dyes

some colour is shape, intense and brilliant

like marble berries or butterfly wings

 

And if colour can be structure

its properties remain

even in darkness

where there is not the smallest space

to let in the light

 

The Park That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Visit But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered

 

You’d strike out at sunset

when coyote howls

echo off granite rocks.

With telescope, charts,

flashlight and snacks,

you’d settle into

a Messier marathon.

Dusk until dawn

you’d spot the catalogue

across the springtime sky–

clusters and nebulae,

galaxies and supernovas.

But there are bills to pay

and broken things to fix.

Ecstasy cannot remain

for our days

are not countless

as stars.

 

 

The Park That Fills You With Sudden, Inexplicable Curiosity, Not Easily Justified

 

With the rain ended

and sun breaking through

I follow the trail, heading east

until I reach the bridge.

When I leave the car

I hear a buzzing hum

beneath the sound of roaring falls

as bees descend upon the meadow.

Corn lilies and columbine,

fireweed and yampah

cram every chink and cranny

of the valley floor.

Self-propagated and unplanned

the smell and colour

knock me back

as staid intentionality never can.

Sissinghurst and Butchart

can keep their garden rooms

with beds of monochromatic blooms

It is the wild life for me.

Lara Dolphin - A native of Pennsylvania, Lara Dolphin is an attorney, nurse, wife and mom of four amazing kids. Her first chapbook, In Search Of The Wondrous Whole, was published by Alien Buddha Press. Her most recent chapbook, Chronicle Of Lost Moments, is available from Dancing Girl Press.