Author: deanschabner

Just a hint of sun, February,
pale disk cutting sharp round
whisper through high clouds — oh
no more than that, yet anxious
eager — encouraging, petals burst
from quickborn buds, hurried blooms
like disciples, arms spread, rush
in promises of embrace — to greet
the unexpected spring. Clouds slip
away, and unveiled, the naked
sun pours its warmth, its gold
emboldening the blooms below, buds
burst one after another, calling spring
to wake with their fierce futile blaze.

(Summer dawn, Brant Point)

Oh the songs —
Cut sharp from tiny lungs,
straining throats,
batted featherlight
to chase the blackvault
night, shimmersongs
in stillness — breathless
gembeats speckling silence
and teasing up the sun
The last of you,
The highest — yes,
but too timid
to come unbidden —
peeks now, peeks —
So take flight
oh you fragile bold wings —
Catch these rays
Tug them, entwine them
in flickering wings,
a night already alight.

(St. Petersburg, Puskinskaya 10)

Out of the blue, clouds
dark, gray to black, and downpour
not just sudden, unexpected —
No — as if blue sky,
laughing, let loose its joke,
soaking streets, buildings, the sun
itself — soaking it all — downpour.
But we — under the arch, in the gallery,
with poets, samizdat, Aronzon
on the bed, looking up, with his own
selfportrait, the bearded poet —
And then — the rain poured out,
clouds could no longer hold back
sun — low, lighting rainbows
in yellow, green, pink, blue —
the houses, trees, shining streets
and everywhere guitars playing,
boys longhaired and girls
singing — singing back the rainbow.
The rain had seemed to be
everything — but look —
It’s not gone, not passed —
a downpour still in each one
who’ll let it soak in, and now in sun
not wilt — but burst into bloom.

Toss your whitecaps in the air
let wind rip them to shreds
But no fear —
lift your head again
you’ll get new ones
just as white —
lace of snow and clouds
Toss them
toss them too
Let the wind howl
a madman raging
while you dance —
rising and falling
rolling in sunlight
Let the wind howl.
Horrible?
Don’t listen
Toss your whitecaps and dance.

it’s a lie they tell
about eve’s eyeing the apple.
no snake at all
but the singing in her ear
a jay’s shriek from the tree
ripping the curtain
of dull selfsatisfied paradise.
and her plucking the apple
tasting the juicy white flesh
hidden within the red skin
juice running down her chin —
that was all adam would need
to truly see her — revelation —
not the perfect surface
the harmony of limbs,
chaste milkless breasts,
but the juice within,
the mystery, unknowable,
hunger, unleashed,
calling like the jay
still high in the tree,
a steelblue knifecut bird
shredding the curtain of dull paradise.

and when he sees her then,
her once placidly flowing hair
now restless curls gone bloodred,
her milkwhite skin clouded
in a fog of earthy freckles,
geese floating between them,
like her, ready to take flight
at any incautious approach,
her seagreen eyes tell him
you know nothing of me,
i am the forest and the sea
i am the haunt of beasts,
my skies are crossed by longwinged owls
whose talons, whose curved beaks,
glisten in the bloodred setting sun,
menacing and alluring,
and in my nights
wolves howl a raucous music
that if you listen,
if you let it in
will unleash the wild in your heavy limbs,
starting you to run.
let it in,
and your bounding feet,
no ground underneath them,
will kick up the cold snow of certainty
into clouds
never seen in eden,
clouds of hungry unknowing
whose song, like the wolves’,
like mine, is a call
to a hunt with no prey but the hunt.

In morning sun
you come —
proud white breast
shoulders white
but bronzed,
blaze freckled
in the rising sun.
Stepping delicately,
dipping your lifted foot
in the shallows,
lifting and dipping
ankle deep —
all the while
head bent on long neck
watching there
in the water
the swirl of cloud
risen on even
the most delicate step.

How could I ever come to you
no duck
no goose
no cormorant or loon
to float, unmoving
yet moving still
up to your side,
wrap my wing around you
hold your breast to mine
your snowwhite breast
white as summer clouds
as windwhipped wavecaps
as churn of crashing breakers.

Duck or goose
cormorant or loon
I’d have no hands to hold you,
no lips

If I threw off everything
bared my body
to the red rising sun
hid nothing
then would you know me,
me, too
wading ankle deep,
head bent, watching
with each delicate step
the swirl of cloud
risen

Would you let me come—
me too, risen, for you?

The great egret watches
stalking the black water
waiting for what to rise
through its reflection.

White, wading longnecked
in the still black water,
white as dream, as fear
and waiting for what to rise.

Yellow-blade beak, neck
an arrow poised in the bow
ready to strike the newborn,
the hopeful, the rising dream.

But oh the grace, the beauty
of the pure white strike,
stabbing what — the newborn
drawn up from murk to light.

And what, looking up from the black,
the murk of thick still water
up to the far blue sky
seeing that cloud dream egret.

The white beauty
unmoving arrow
poised
in the unreachable blue–

Rise to it, you newborn,
rise from the fertile murk,
the darkness, you hopeful,
rise to it — let it strike.

Yes, the yellow beak’s blade
is sharp, the point
when it pierces
will make you writhe

but don’t fear it,
you newborn
you dreamer.
Before you know,

you’ll be gobbled down
gone in darkness,
and when that great bird
bends her legs, rises

into flight, you too
will be brilliant-white,
an arrow no longer poised,
set awing in that far fierce blue.

Evening comes over green sea
and it’s there
out beyond breakers
nightfall catches me.

Last blaze of sun
rips up red
through clouds, spilling
over rolling swell,
dying the white
spumehaired breakercaps
as they tumble away
toward the unseen shore.

Out beyond breakers
nightfall catches me,
sun dives into
rolling swell, and black
spills over, stars
spin in gaping
nothingness.

Somewhere there is shore,
somewhere sand
but in the black above
in the black of waves
I lose my limbs—
my body one with
the restless water.

Blackness.

The depths above, below
broken only
by the shimmering surface
rising and falling
restless, whispering
incomprehensible.

Then, without asking
You rise beside me–
Red hair — a sun
bursts from the sea
Aurora
rising, tossing
wild curls
splattering me and sea
with shards of your sun
and your smile
wild as your curls
and sure
lights your wavegreen eyes
freckles flutter
birdclouds
around your face
shoulders, chest—
In your hands
against your legs,
belly, breasts
my limbs, my body
the black had swallowed—
In your laugh, your breath
the roar of breakers
rising, curling, tumbling
away, tossing clouds
under the starsplattered sky—
In your lips, your kiss
the surge of wave
rising, yes
for me to give myself
to breaking crest,
abandon to rush
–to powerlessness–
all fear
and ride your force,
lifted–
a bird in air
motionless
but moving—
and ready, when you say,
to dive.

A chip of sun
alights on a reed
catching the blade
sideways–
Wings flutter,
beak rubs quick
twice
up and down against the shaft.
Her fat little body
a yellowgreen tear
hung from clutching claws
ready to fall.
The reed sways
yellowgreen like her
and bright in the sun —
sways
but does not bend.

I can’t look away
but that’s nothing to her
and she’s off —
like that —
into the reeds
stolen by flickering wings
herself her own thief
carrying off the secret
I didn’t know I’d seen
until – quickwinged –
she was gone
and with her
a flare of life
I’ll never be able to hold
long enough
to know.