no movement in this dark place
no stars, the dark sky belying a spark
under a thick layer of leaves
Sometimes the light finds us
penetrating, a rare occurrence
thru the underlayment of dark’s cold blanket
the wolves, even as spiritual cognizant entities
arrayed in a fan on the utmost slope
show a respect, and gives us our new respect
not the deference of black fear,
for our ability to protect ourselves.
echoing thru the lake mists.
the universe volunteered it.
This dreamer was dancing around a fire
dressed as a Native American
stood monolithic in the burn.
The “R” stood for rejection
and the fire burned brightly
shoes lit up with each footfall,
suddenly stopping the dance, seeing her waving
as if from a great distance
like the divide of a deep canyon
unreachable, untouchable, almost un-seeable,
across the Deep Divide of dreams.
She came up from the audience
where the wolves were arrayed above
She wanted to say it to me.
Clearly she was still on that piney slope there.
The pen writes what the muse dictates
engaged with the speed of intuition
words flow out, they are smarter than I am
they know where to place themselves
how to dance with the soft curves of a comma
standing with the solitary unmoving periods
with the butterfly flitting of an ellipsis
and pointing that-a-way with a colon.
It is lightening in the storm, tho
that one off in the distance
over there across the red and yellow canyon-lands
you can see the line of storms moving
the sky a drama of grey-blue rain showers
even as the sun sparkles still
Ray Whitaker participates regularly with several zoom poetic events worldwide. Among them, he has been spotlighted on a US National Poetry broadcast from Quintessential Listening Poetry Online Radio In April, ’24; and also an International Poetry Recital hosted by The Fertile Minds out of India this past April. In July he was the reading featured poet in David Leo Sirois’ Spoken World Online; in August he was one of six poets featured at the CHAUTAUQUA Arts Festival in Palmer Lake, Colorado. He is Moderator for Michael Lee Johnson’s social media page “My Voice, Your Words—Poetry In Action”, and an Editor on Masticadores Canada Literary Online Journal.
