Lughnsasa 2013 - a reading (on YouTube)
Marshlands of clouds meander near the evening sun. Their
silver outlines a river wandering aimlessly through the bayou of the horizon.
Still, clear water covers the modeled topography of the river bottom, its
glassy surface protecting a Lilliputian landscape from harm. A lone marsh hen
silently slices a wake across the smooth, black water until time heals its
mirrored surface of the scar of her passing.
Low, angry clouds march in like an army on the move. Thunder
rumbles an uneasy warning, a dispatch from their distant war. As crosscurrents
of wind forms a riptide, sails of lily pads glide across the water, a green
armada of coracles that never reach the shore. A tiny dragonfly keeps
station, battling a chill wind, bobbing and dipping between the line dividing
lake from shore.
Rain sheeting down the window paints a watercolor of the
landscape, its broad and narrow brushstrokes blurring sky with trees. A lone
droplet trickles down the rain-spattered pane, seeding an avalanche of tears
before more sprout like mushrooms in its wake.
A chaos of concentric circles swirl as rain drips into the
hanging pool, running like rivulets down the chains suspending it from heaven.
With a teardrop poised on every needle, clusters of tiny diamonds sparkle with the
last of summer’s sunlight as the spray of rain continues.
In the aftermath, grapes, like the irides of Europa's
wild-eyed children, or the wide eyes of playful garden predators, swell from
green to black overnight. Soon, the harvest like the reaper comes.
© 2013 Edward P. Morgan III
© 2013 Edward P. Morgan III
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ReplyDeleteNotes and asides:
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As I’ve said before Lughnasa is the first day of Celtic autumn. It marks the beginning of the berry harvest, the first harvest of the year.
Each evening around Lughnasa, Karen and I walk in the park behind the house and pilfer wild, Florida grapes. Some years, one set of vines ripens, some years others. Some are sweet, some are tart. Usually, the bounty last for several weeks. This year is probably the second best we’ve seen. Probably from all the rain we’ve had in June and July, nearly 30 inches total (you read that right).
Oh, and irides is the now uncommon plural of iris.
Picture Notes:
ReplyDeleteThe description of the marsh hen slicing through the water caught my imagination with this one. I starred with a picture of a sunset I took out at Walsingham Park. After putting in the shoreline, I sampled the sky's color in procreate and used the blur tool to blend everything in a layer behind the shore. I copied that to the bottom and inverted it. Then pulled vertical lines down form the shore at its bottom and then swiped sideways to give the effect of ripples on the surface as a reflection of the sky. The hen and her wake are in a layer above that.