Janice D. Soderling

Sunrise on Naxos

Like an orchestra tuning up, discord
asserts itself. Soon morning will present
the net-veined flight of dragonflies;
the violent declamations of brown sparrows;
the sideways slide of small crabs in the bay.
All this and more.

Dreamed messages fall in fragments,
like violet shadows on the mountain
where the sun strikes, illuminates, moves on.
Briefly all is one,
yet never fully known.
Forgetfulness floats up like fragrance.

On rigid stems, chartreuse tendrils bend.
A lizard flattens, creeps beneath a stone.
A donkey brays, and who can know its thoughts
or know their own, struggling in a net
of reason full of holes,
as useless as daylight to the blind.

All Souls’ Day in the Suburbs

Pre-dawn pandemonium on the day of the dead.
In the parking lot, four stories down,
a frantic ringing of metallic bones.

The scene quickens. A miniature carnival,
yellow lights flashing front and back.
A sky full of shooting stars
jerked down to asphalt level.
One car door hangs open like a deaf ear.
The distress signal scurries up and down its limited scale.
Timely as the cavalry, a police cruiser rolls into view.

Mist shrouds the lamplight in the courtyard.
No one can disperse it single-handedly, or peel it away
like the skin of a ripe grape. No one.
Not me, not you, not even that uniformed officer,
his authoritative mouth
pressing close as a kiss
against the mike in his black-gloved hand.

The excitement is over.
Things slowly go back to normal,
whatever that is.

Alley cats snarl in an unseen passageway.
Discordant snarls, but serving their purpose
as words sometimes do
when pale morning light settles itself softly
atop red-tiled roofs and somnolent trees,
to urgently ride the warm smell of bread
rising early from the fat baker's ovens.