Poetry Showcase for Merril D. Smith (including some Leonard Cohen inspired poems)

(c) Geoffrey Wren

Rhythms of Time

Birds on a wire
gather like clouds before a storm,
like thoughts flocked together,
perched before they fly shadow-winged
toward the blazing sun

gilding the rooftops--and the fiddler—
with his burning violin, 
sings the songs of stars—

the endless cycle of before
and after love and beauty, constants amidst the fleeting. 
And so, we waltz, three-quarters beyond time,
pausing like birds, then soaring high again,
in rhythm, feeling the universe’s beat.


*Inspired by Leonard Cohen’s “Bird on a Wire” and “Dance Me to the End of Time.”*

Osprey

Star-dusted primordial seas birth dinosaurs,
who emerge to fly back toward the light.
From river shore, I watch them
in bobble-winged flight,
twinkling silver above the sapphire waves.
Now, there, in the crisscross currents, 
the osprey sights a rainbow beneath the surface. 
A dive and splash, his taloned toes grab
the flounder--
who only sees white wings,
the Angel of Death, carrying him home.



Spaces

There’s a space in the tumble of a wave
 just before it hits the sand, 
when you can see the fold of time--a fraction of a second
that vanishes with the evanescent sparkle
of spindrift in the air,
a synaptic connection made and gone,
winged on white gull against grey-blue sky. 
As a strand of seaweed twines around your ankle, 
the moment passes,
and the next --
and you remember him,
and that space between heartbeats, 
when you listened, waiting for the next one--
that never came.

Short bio: Merril D. Smith is a historian and poet. She is inspired by nature, particularly her walks along the Delaware River. Her poetry has been published recently in Black Bough Poetry, Anti-Heroin Chic, Nightingale and Sparrow, and Fevers of the Mind.

Twitter: @merril_mds
https://www.merrildsmith.com

A Fevers of the Mind Quick-9 Interview with Merril D. Smith

The Wind Whispers Storms by Merril D. Smith   (poetry from her webpage)

3 poems from Merril D. Smith in Fevers of the Mind Poetry Press Presents the Poets of 2020