Three Poems by G. Emil Reutter

 

Repose

 

Church bells a calling

                            lingers in thick summer air.

Muffled voices rise from ancient

                            resting places, encircle the empty

church. Stained-glass weeps of

                             loneliness, drip, drip on skeletons

of black-eyed susans. Spalling yard’s encircling

                             wall hangs in air as stones tilt, fall

much as headstones toppled.

                             Blank faces stare into sun

as peregrine falcon slices air

                              hangs atop sycamore

ee-chup, ee-chup, kack-kack-kack.

                             Another arrives as eastern

screech owl barks, then takes flight.

                              next to the black stone marked

“free at last”, songless carcass of sparrow

                                lays in repose.

 

 

Changes

 

She floats in a torrent

of words, sips coffee

tattoos the words onto

a piece of marble. When

complete sings the words

off the page, watches as

they drift across land and

sea.

               The moon is shrinking

                it is shrinking as the wind

                whispers in her ear. A

                secret she cannot share.

Yet the words come forth in metaphor

modifiers, images as the moon slowly

turns it back on earth, its belt beginning

to loop.

 

Across the road, limbs of a Japanese Maple

leafless branches and suckers shake, rattle

bole bends, soil lifts and falls, flakes of

snow descends from heaven.

              The moon is shrinking

              it is shrinking as the snow

              whispers in her ear. A

              secret she cannot share.

 

The eastern oceans bulge

left western oceans bulge

right moon is shrinking

it is shrinking as mist

whispers in her ear. A

secret she cannot share.

 

 

End of Summer

 

Autumn is bullying summer

this early September. Brown

sycamore leaves scatter on

ground, blend with shredded

summer bark. Mums in garden

bed are budding, asters purple 

bloom, impatiens are running

out of time.

 

Stems of cone flowers, black-eyed

susans are browning leading to

caps of petal less heads picked

clean by gold finches. Day lily

stalks rise from mulched beds

for their last visit of the year.

 

Colour abounds with blooming

roses of pink, of red, of white

as well as purple heads of the turtles

white full blooms of Hosta lilies

faded blooms of hydrangea. Autumn

azalea in crimson next to reddened

leaves of peonies darkening each

passing day.

 

G. Emil Reutter is a writer of poems and stories. He can be found at: https://gereutter.wordpress.com/about/