Week 18: Veil

Wash of color on the driveway
purple shadows longer than the trees are tall
eastern sun, a veil of mist
a mourning dove calling from the wire

a loose brick in the sidewalk
a beam of light that appears from nowhere
there is something in the works, I can feel it

you may be warm and tight beneath your covers
but I am out here on my toes, shivering
waiting for something unexpected to appear
waiting for church bells to ring without a reason
or a bushel of apples to drop from their stems all at once
or a giant peony to bloom just below the surface of the earth
and open to the sky like a secret, velvet cave
and swallow us together into its ruffled folds, you and I

Author’s Notes:

This week’s poem very much fits into a style that I seem to have developed—create a setting using gentle, placid imagery that lulls you back, and then toss a pebble into the pond and watch the ripples.

The poem doesn’t totally resolve, which I sort of like, because it’s a poem about anticipation. I’m curious if it reads as being full of excitement or dread. I was trying to make it ambiguous, but I suspect that it will feel like one or the other depending on the person reading it.

Favorite Line:
and open to the sky like a secret, velvet cave

A Word that I add in and then deleted about 6 Times:
Light: [Light] wash of color on the driveway