Friday, September 28, 2012

snapshot: starlings, maybe





A boy stands, looking out

through the barred window
of the cornfield
row on row
straight as blue silos
straight as red barns.
His father’s tractor
turns more dull furrows
to the flat horizon and
only that distant cloud
dares to show a curve.
And this swirl of starlings
-- exploding --
from the yellow grain.

- Ralph Murre


That's an oil painting (about 3 x 5 feet) I started years ago, then abandoned, unfinished, for a very long time. I recently dug it out and completed working on it, I hope. Somewhere in the interim, the poem came to me. And no, it is not autobiographical. Exactly.   ~ R.M.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Chiseled





You Gods in Granite

and, oh, you alabaster angels,
you marble Mercury,
I have carved you in my own image.
Can you not try to go lightly
in your shoes of ponderous
and imponderable weight,
can you not try to soar
on your wings of stone?

~ Ralph Murre

Monday, September 10, 2012

with all your science



            with all your science
                      tell me
            how much     
                      of the ocean
            is tears
                       tell me
                       the fish aren't crying
                                             all the time

                       ~ ralph murre

Thursday, September 06, 2012

Just Now



just now
as the planet still spins
with its endearing little wobble
and you
with that smile
and an air of possibility
just now
I think I'd like to live
to be very old

~ Ralph Murre

previously published in my collection, The Price of Gravity (Auk Ward Editions)

Monday, September 03, 2012