Poetry
1.
swerve to shore and bend to bay riverrun Niagara
nigh beside that curving shore swooshing forth
of course that swerves and winds and wends and bends
nigh beside that riverone crowdsofunknowing gather
Niagaratherings ringsounds too sure the bamboo flute
nigh flutist piping fretafret mute falls Niagara
as flute loops clinging suitsofsong round each earacoy
stringing and winging Niagaratherings again away
awake
2.
Quaking rest, wet night envelops tent while
three sleep still and fourth wakes tingling without
alarm, wakes to feel the fell of dark dew,
not Niagara, mute flute tucked, to feel ground.
Cocooned in toothed blankets, the warmth that was
quickly seeps, at sleep’s loss, out. Pillowless
head reels (splint pillars seem tottery) as
trade of cheers fancied of lined shores dawns.
3.
Creeping as if in crusade toward the shore,
questing to be the more intimate guest
of a Trinity: of a sun, sand and surf:
Foghorns travel boatlessly to the shore,
summoning tender feet labyrinthine ‘round
dark pockets, compelling shield and shift of step:
late shift, a Fall. Arise. Sandal snags, left
behind: divining tide suffers no pose.
4.
Brambles behind, lagoon to the green left
only a blue-bleak deadness to the flat
barren beach before her. Fresh tobacco
pocketed, balanced by flute and film, dance
of thoughts drift entranced, she waits. Not playing
or smoking or photographing, but waiting,
rubbing the sole stiffened by her passage,
Tempted to sleep and dream, she waits awake.
5.
Overhead moonless night is speckled with
the dull light of stars too distant to count.
Closer streetlamp mars the closer night,
twisting immaculate blackness to a fault.
With man’s contrivance it might be day but
she knows the night and the powered pelting
waves, curling and cresting with no moon to
direct them, toll the seconds ‘til true dawn.
6.
Scouting gull circles the beachhead voiding
lagoon and arcs away as tiers nearest
horizon flicker and depart, brushed by
tips of a tincture, dwindling safe darkness
to a sheer veil torn in anticipation
of the host. Drumming of the desolate
shores, louder, beacons the approach, while
lusters shape shapes and forms foreign.
7.
Unkempt, she sits off Huron tide, waiting
for the tearing of further tiers, fingering
stops—agape she cannot play. Gloom now gone
craving spent, remnant only gaudy lamplight.
Night tears, blanket rips, lamp melts, blind to else
she splashes as Sun arrows creasing crests:
halts as Star reproaches: rays ebb toward shore.
Clarity, Unity, Wholeness: she wakes.
8.
Wet, she gains away. Trinity will not
have a fourth. Host is host even guestless.
Creation blooms with apprehension. Though
none capture, handle—rather than perish
in denial—filmless, lipping flute,
a part she is which dreams and remembers.
Heart paces limp homeward toward a trinity
she can awake: accepting sun, sum, yes
Michael Varga 1977
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