Three Poems: "Expanse," "Dripping," and "Considering the Vineyard"
Literary Issue: Poems by Elsa Feltl
“Expanse”
We swell like the sea when its mist
brushes our face, its salt stings eyes
and when the sun kisses us
on the nose, the cheeks, the lips.
We cannot help but rise to this light,
meet it as it falls, rush to the waves.
We cannot help but brush our hands
on the sand, the seagrass.
Put the shells in our pockets,
sequestering the sense of expanse.
Save your catch from the scene but know:
when the blue vastness shifts just so
and verdant limbs sway their beckon,
we cannot help but go.
“Dripping”
In the still of the world the Dawn drips out,
melting slowly over wooded thick above,
canopies catching sunrise.
Her concern is with her touch, her spreading hands.
Dust falls across shafts of sunlight. Her concern
is with these particles, these that drift in and out of sight.
We long to reach for something new,
to speak a new language of age,
this dust is the same it has always been—
what once used to be other things.
Now dust. But the sunlight dapples
dogwood and chestnut, stilled now.
Dawn springs golden the day.
These trees catch her drops and we drink in her haze;
dust slows in saturated light. Weightless.
“Considering the Vineyard”
Trails wet with clover dew
bunched green bud where
soon grape flower will bloom.
Merlot vine encircling
twists round the trellis,
the wine wire binds and
coaxes to higher skies.
Bumbling body of a honey bee
fat with pollen, dusty, red poppy
in full blossom, he sits on its lips.
Swell of baby budding blooms
grapes in bunches green and mauve
clotted like blood or sugar,
bittersweet to the mouth.
Emboldened ants crawl on toes
sun heats down on bridge of nose
upward eyes trail leaves of green
towards things seen and felt
in beating rhythm, soaking sponge
for ages later. To recall,
re-taste, re-see, that bloodred bud,
those buzzing bees.
Smitten by the scene, turn
and catch that loving sunbeam
in your eyes, upon the mind,
the sprawled out self. Consider
these trails. Consider the shift
of grass and green and grape.
In the canvas of the world, be.