John Unterecker

The canyon walls close in again,
slant light a silver glare in brown water.
The water is only knee deep, but when the boy reaches the
boulders—
purple dark, silvered by the smash of brute water—
water will tear at his chest and arms.
The walls of the canyon are brilliant in late light.
They would have glared red and gold for his drowned camera:

I. PULSE

Light over the Hudson recovers a Caribbean I have
never seen.
We list islands: Molokai, Oahu, Kauai; St. Lucia,
Haiti….
The surf folds tunnels of light
while a hand folds over a wrist (tell-tale pulse),
counting. The long tunnel is a wrist of blown spume.

It is like a dance, I think, this silence full of questions.
Pulse-beat; pulse-beat. Pulse. Pulse.

I push my hair back into the memories of palm trees,

Mortal and full of praise,
I watch the enchanted hero busy at his chores:
desert, tundra,
prairie restless
under an easy stride.

Dagger in belt, sword
slapping thigh, he passes
from sight, the restored land

At dusk, a great flare of winter lightning photographed the bay:
Waves were broken scrolls. Beyond Donegal, white mountains
hung in a narrow bas-relief frozen on sky.

Later, there was sleet: trees down
on the Drumholm road; near Timoney’s farm, a frantic goose
pinned under branches.

All night long, we spoke of loneliness,
long winter, while winter sang in the chimneys.

Proof Sheets: 36 Prints
These photographs are the index of an hour,

My liveliest self, I give you fair leave
in these windblown weathers,
heather-hearted and human and strange,
to turn every blackberry corner
of yesterday’s summer.

The robin, singing her love-me-forever,
kiss-catch-clutch-in the heather
blues, sings tide flow

I

Beginnings: a chrysalis improvisation
in the wings, roles
taking on flesh before a role begins…

as light begins in the elm,
pushing the long elm branches into night,
a ghost light pressing sky…

or actors, swollen with strange selves,