Copyright (c) 1992 First Things 19 (January 1992): 3, 34, 40, 44.
How good and fine it would have been, to be out upon the wild loon swells
And watch the sea–eagles coming in;
Or to climb, body lashed by salt sea spray, up
Through the face–lashing spray of pine,
To view through a rift the goshawk's nest, and, hunched over all
Those downy forms, that fierce red eye;
Or to see the glint in the vixen's eyes, pin–hard and bright,
Gemstone green of the finest water,
As she weaves her way through the marsh verdure,
Hard–won duck champed tight and secure:
Essential image both guide and lure.
–Craig Payne
From the stack outside the window's frame,
White smoke, mostly steam, breaks hard across
A bright blue square of winter sky.
It tumbles in gusts, and its knots untie
Then vanish in air.
They are strangely calming, these forms above
The skeletal trees, the drifted roofs,
Above the houses where lives
Go on, those finally unknowable other lives
So quiet and white.
The shapes blow by and do not resemble
Faces or angels. They swell, arc, reach, disperse,
And pantomime in empty sky
The selves inside
That billow and pass.
–Robert Schultz
I fish this bay all morning.
High clouds cap me, a light breeze
tickles the water's skin.
Fall's green–brown leaves shade the shore.
By noon, no fish. I lean
over the gunwale staring into the water.
I cannot see past my own reflection,
rippled by clouds & salt.
I do not notice the water's spasm
20 feet away—
not the quick bright splash of scup or blue,
but silent muscular surface turbulence,
a ribbed intimation of mighty motion below.
The sky does not speak, nor the sea talk.
Mirrors, they breathe images
in the cadenced wash of pure extension.
Face to face with our future,
we cannot see the whale
who will swallow us whole.
–Bob Fauteaux
First snow falls in kind
agreement to timeless ways.
Gratia plena.
Our Lady of Care
is a kindly countenance
sad as autumn frost.
Faithful tears reclaim
gardens brought to graceless ruin
by wishing wells of sin.
–Frederick S. Gilson