Hobble Creek Review
| Helen Losse |
Where Light Is Going
How I love that which floats on the wind—
scent of honeysuckle, autumn leaves, October,
a sudden rain. The babbling of a brook.
A trail of black smoke follows the mountain,
curving. The lone train-whistle that rides on
smoky air. A waving engineer. Birds that
chirp, crickets that drone. Sparks from
a campfire. Hot dogs on sharpened sticks.
The top of a hill where I climbed from the valley.
The valley where I waded in a small stream,
where fields of cows chomped tall, red clover.
Hymns from a church. Bells that somehow
ring at dusk. The time of year when night
comes early. The setting sun behind ever-
green trees, the forlorn sky becoming heavy blue.
The horizon turns pink and mauve, then purple.
The cold wind scatters the leftover leaves,
while Daddy’s silhouette plays
a mean harmonica. Timid as first, I dance—
which is only to say that which I love
is nothing but memories. So that watching a sunset
becomes the home to which I must return. So when
the music quickens, peaks in crescendo, sunbeams
rush through an open door onto a staircase. So that
when the great spectrum rolls in through a window—
cascading through my body like the beating of my heart—
the size of a forest is not always obvious.
Looking backward toward dusk and childhood’s black
tree-branches, today it seems better to fly toward
the sun. It would be easier to speak as others believe.
Yet neither airplanes nor birds can fly through the rainbow,
capture the light from the flash of a desperate firefly
or from the candles I have lit for their natural warmth.
Who can fly to where light is going, where grace floats
in earth’s swirling dust, though only in teaspoonfuls,
abounds in the ocean, in flotsam, in rich sea foam?
I do not see the ocean’s cruel intentions
but feel, instead, the pull of the moon:
something alive and pulsating,
holding me to land.
How I love that which floats on the wind—
scent of honeysuckle, autumn leaves, October,
a sudden rain. The babbling of a brook.
A trail of black smoke follows the mountain,
curving. The lone train-whistle that rides on
smoky air. A waving engineer. Birds that
chirp, crickets that drone. Sparks from
a campfire. Hot dogs on sharpened sticks.
The top of a hill where I climbed from the valley.
The valley where I waded in a small stream,
where fields of cows chomped tall, red clover.
Hymns from a church. Bells that somehow
ring at dusk. The time of year when night
comes early. The setting sun behind ever-
green trees, the forlorn sky becoming heavy blue.
The horizon turns pink and mauve, then purple.
The cold wind scatters the leftover leaves,
while Daddy’s silhouette plays
a mean harmonica. Timid as first, I dance—
which is only to say that which I love
is nothing but memories. So that watching a sunset
becomes the home to which I must return. So when
the music quickens, peaks in crescendo, sunbeams
rush through an open door onto a staircase. So that
when the great spectrum rolls in through a window—
cascading through my body like the beating of my heart—
the size of a forest is not always obvious.
Looking backward toward dusk and childhood’s black
tree-branches, today it seems better to fly toward
the sun. It would be easier to speak as others believe.
Yet neither airplanes nor birds can fly through the rainbow,
capture the light from the flash of a desperate firefly
or from the candles I have lit for their natural warmth.
Who can fly to where light is going, where grace floats
in earth’s swirling dust, though only in teaspoonfuls,
abounds in the ocean, in flotsam, in rich sea foam?
I do not see the ocean’s cruel intentions
but feel, instead, the pull of the moon:
something alive and pulsating,
holding me to land.
Helen Losse is the author of Better With Friends (Rank Stranger Press,
2009) and two chapbooks: Gathering the Broken Pieces and Paper
Snowflakes. She is the Poetry Editor of The Dead Mule School of Southern
Literature. Her recent poetry publications and acceptances include Shape of
a Box, Right Hand Pointing, The Wild Goose Review, and Blue Fifth Review.
Educated at Missouri Southern State and Wake Forest Universities, she lives
in Winston-Salem, NC.
2009) and two chapbooks: Gathering the Broken Pieces and Paper
Snowflakes. She is the Poetry Editor of The Dead Mule School of Southern
Literature. Her recent poetry publications and acceptances include Shape of
a Box, Right Hand Pointing, The Wild Goose Review, and Blue Fifth Review.
Educated at Missouri Southern State and Wake Forest Universities, she lives
in Winston-Salem, NC.
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