Listen to Julie L. Moore read "This is the landscape left"
This is the landscape left
after Night Forest, 18”x 24,” mixed media on canvas,
by Sherry Simone, in the German Village Art League’s
2011 Language of Art Exhibit, The High Road Gallery,
Worthington, Ohio
after rain has rinsed
the silver skin of stone
and showered the brazen
breasts of trees, after the stream,
rising high, comes across
roots that have always been
unearthed. Drink, now, old forest,
while the moon pokes
its luminescent head
through the clouds’ thick curtains
and with a wave of its wand,
turns all things blue.
Here, sip the hue of mystery’s deep
brew, let it burn
like whiskey in your throat
as you hear the owl’s dis-
embodied shout,
the distant sun’s complaint
of camouflage. Let your long tongues
lap up solace, recall
the seeds that once shook
in winter’s fierce wind,
then landed in this place,
squeezed between rocks
to reach the soil’s strong hold.
Taste your shadows, floating
on the water, their flavor strong
and smooth as the dark
contour of dawn.
Listen to Julie L. Moore read "After Watering"
After Watering
After my husband soaks pansies
in their early autumn beds
and drenches ferns suspended
high above the porch, misting,
as he goes, white balustrade,
rocking chairs, and me;
after he douses pink impatiens by the door
and puddles form and one narrow
tributary streams
toward the stoop, trickles
over; after he stows away the hose
and sparrows fill the still-
green pear tree, their noise
a veritable storm of story;
then
evening’s blue deluge
deepens, hushing the birds,
and all is resonance:
sweet chemistry of water
rustling leaves and petals,
soft swallows of earth.
Julie L. Moore is the author of Slipping Out of Bloom (WordTech Editions) and Election Day (Finishing Line Press). In addition, her manuscript, Scandal of Particularity, was a finalist for the 2011 FutureCycle Press Poetry Book Prize and a semi-finalist for the 2011 Perugia Press Prize. A Best of the Net and two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, Moore has had her poetry published in Alaska Quarterly Review, American Poetry Journal, Cimarron Review, The Missouri Review Online, The Southern Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and Verse Daily. You can learn more about her work at www.julielmoore.com.
