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.

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

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

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)

Everyday and Labor Day, too

aloft, a worker

and on deck, and for wages

in the dark below

~ arem