At Gloaming Read online

  At Gloaming

  Poems by Larry Schug

  North Star Press of St. Cloud, Inc.

  St. Cloud, Minnesota

  Front cover photo: Larry Schug

  Author photo: Juliann Rule

  Copyright © 2014 Larry Schug

  Print ISBN 978-0-87839-748-8

  ebook ISBN: 978-0-87839-978-9

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or book reviews.

  First Edition: March 2014

  Published by

  North Star Press of St. Cloud, Inc.

  P.O. Box 451

  St. Cloud, MN 56302

  northstarpress.com

  Dedicated to Juli

  There is no poetry without you.

  Other Books By Larry Schug

  Published by North Star Press:

  Scales Out of Balance: Poems by Lawrence Schug (1990)

  Caution: Thin Ice: Poems by Lawrence Schug (1993)

  The Turning of Wheels: Poems by Larry Schug (2001)

  Arrogant Bones: Poems by Larry Schug (2008)

  Nails: Poems by Larry Schug (2011)

  Acknowledgements

  The following poems or versions thereof were originally published in the following print or electronic journals or anthologies. Thank you to all the editors, patrons and readers of these publications.

  “Nude Modeling” and “The Implications of Washing Dishes” in Studio 1.

  “Etched in Granite” and “Sharon Springs, Kansas” in The Talking Stick.

  “Thanks, Dude,” “The Lights Go off During the Super Bowl,” “In Light Of,” “A Place Called Ghost Ranch,” “Green Heron in Rain,” “You Wish,” “A Speculation on Spiders,” and “The Killdeer Response” in Wild Goose Poetry Review.

  “Runaway Tractor” in Bareback Magazine.

  “A Small Kindness, This” and “Apple Harvest” in Chantarelle’s Notebook.

  “The Burden of Souls” and “Wood Ticks, That’s Different” in Cynic Café.

  “An Accordion, I Think” and “At the Arboretum” in River Poet’s Journal.

  “Between the Lines” in Matchbook.

  “Mending Mittens,” and “Rhubarb” in Your Daily Poem.

  “Everyone Forgot” in Misfits’ Miscellaneous.

  “Dull Knife’s Blanket” and “Ghost Warriors” in Trajectory.

  “Fish” in Imitation Fruit.

  “Pretender,” “The Perfect Time,” “Apprentice Gods” and “Conjecture” in Circle Show.

  “Homeless in Duluth,” “Toads,” and “Memorial” in Nota Bene.

  “This Beautiful Air” in New Plains Review.

  “Sailors Becalmed,” “A Dream of Roger Young,” “You Could Fool Yourself,” and “One Way to Bridge a Cultural Divide” in Main Channel Voices.

  “At Gloaming” in Poetry Quarterly.

  “A Lesson in Mindfulness” in A Year of Being Here.

  Table of Contents

  Other Books By Larry Schug

  Acknowledgements

  I: An Invisible Thread

  Light, as a Feather

  Watch Yourself around Crows

  The Killdeer Response

  Great Blue Heron

  A Lesson in Mindfulness

  Green Heron in Rain

  Ripples

  Sandhill Cranes

  Clouds

  Rain Delay

  February Blue

  Sharon Springs, Kansas

  Moon Haiku

  This Pale Moon Floating

  Tango Luna

  While Watching the Leonid Meteor Shower

  Working Women

  Cat as Zen Master

  Hail Storm

  Evanescence

  The Same Beautiful Air

  A Speculation on Spiders

  Spider

  Toads

  A Serpent’s Lament

  Wood Ticks

  The Isle Royale Wolf Pack

  Cascade Falls

  Cascade River

  Bottled Water

  At Gloaming

  Conjecture

  A Small Kindness, This

  Maple Syrup Time

  No Help

  Apprentice Gods

  Mending Mittens

  At the Arboretum

  Grasses Rustling

  Coneflowers

  An Accordion, I Think

  Juli and Blue Violets

  Rhubarb

  Thoughts in the Rhubarb Patch

  You Could Fool Yourself

  II: Just This Side of Invisible

  Caucasian

  Vinegar

  Like Father, Like Son

  Me and Jimmy

  The Allman Brothers Singing

  My Mother Crying

  Angels

  Kisses

  Andy Williams Died Today

  The Old Guys at Kay’s Kitchen

  Diagnosis

  Sailors Becalmed

  Memorial

  From All Appearances

  A Dream of Roger Young

  A Poem at Ann’s Passing

  Blueberry Muffins

  Pretender

  Veteran

  Etched in Granite

  Lunch at Kay’s Kitchen

  The Mourners at “Shiner’s” Funeral

  Fixing

  Don’t Forget

  III: When the TV’s Turned Off

  Between Melancholy and Nostalgia

  Blame the Poem

  Nude Modeling

  Dental Insurance

  Apple Harvest

  Everyone Forgot

  The Implications of Washing Dishes

  When I Met You

  Sister Bay, Wisconsin

  Winter

  Lost Key

  Fishing

  Fish

  Farm Girl

  It All

  Between the Lines

  Homeless in Duluth

  The Burden of Souls

  In Light Of

  The Perfect Time

  Runaway Tractor

  Barn

  Cowbell

  One Way to Bridge a Cultural Divide

  Perspective

  Ghost Warriors

  Kokopelli

  Thousand-Year-Old Songs

  Dull Knife’s Blanket

  Reflection on a Starry Night

  A Place Called Ghost Ranch

  With a Nod to Georgia O’Keefe

  You Wish

  Mars and Venus Meet on Earth TV

  Jane Goodall

  The Lights Go Out During the Super Bowl

  Nobody Told Us About the Blues

  I: An Invisible Thread

  Light, as a Feather

  Amenable to spells, omens,

  talismans, totems,

  to simple beauty,

  I pick up a black feather,

  a tatter of night

  fallen from a raven’s cape;

  become mesmerized by the prism of colors

  it casts, this ebony feather

  of no more or less mystical property

  than anythin
g else fallen from the sky,

  yet intensely significant as the feather it is,

  twirling between my fingertips,

  catching and releasing light born of darkness.

  Watch Yourself around Crows

  Everybody knows crows talk

  Crawk Crawk

  don’t need no subpoena

  to start a raucous squawkin’

  Don’t be fooled by a crow’s

  drunken sailor walk

  watch yourself

  crows ain’t tattlers or tale tellers

  witnesses what they be

  sayin’ it like they see it

  keepin’ an ebony eye on the world

  The Killdeer Response

  Feigning a broken wing,

  a killdeer tries to lure me away

  from her nest of stones,

  spotted eggs hidden within.

  She recognizes me for what I am—

  a predator,

  and though I have no intention of harm,

  my presence alarms her,

  ignites a primordial response,

  the same response your mother would have

  to a stranger lurking near your house

  when you were a nestling.

  Great Blue Heron

  A great blue heron

  hunting leopard frogs

  stands stick-still in green muck,

  one leg tucked into its breast,

  crested head poised like an arrow

  notched in a drawn bowstring.

  I see that silence and intensity

  do not guarantee the heron a meal;

  patience is not always rewarded.

  Sometimes it becomes necessary

  to fly to another pond,

  hungry.

  A Lesson in Mindfulness

  A Buddhist monk

  is trying to teach me

  mindfulness

  from a book

  but my stomach

  is too full of ice cream

  for me to breathe properly.

  Outside my window,

  a hungry green heron,

  perched perfectly still,

  fully in his moment,

  surveys the pond

  for frogs and fish.

  The teacher

  has grown green wings,

  the book having folded up

  its feathers for the night.

  Green Heron in Rain

  The light’s not right, too much glare

  for a photo through the rain-streaked window,

  and not being a painter or sketcher

  I turn to words to capture and convey

  the image of a solitary green heron,

  its rusty breast, pointed crest, stiletto beak,

  preening gray-green feathers worn like a cape;

  gripping a branch of a fallen aspen

  with long feet, orange as a prairie sunset.

  The steel-gray pond bubbles and ripples in the rain,

  backdrop of shimmering quicksilver,

  a scene that could move an agnostic soul

  to believe in the hand of some god

  with no religion to muddy the image,

  within or without.

  Ripples

  Each ripple created as geese take flight

  reflects its own sunset,

  ripple follows ripple, sunset follows sunset

  like days follow days, adding up to a life,

  your life.

  You may see your life in this bruised sky

  of royal purple and tangerine, citrean yellow.

  When the water calms, slips into sleep,

  that’s your life, too,

  reflected in dreams of starshine.

  Sandhill Cranes

  From the periphery of vision

  on a moving bicycle,

  the three sandhill cranes look like deer,

  feathers, the same cinnamon color

  deer don in early summer, catching sun;

  their postures, long necks bent

  to the ground like grazing deer,

  before I notice the rose-colored berets

  they wear, as they lift their heads

  from a low spot in an alfalfa field,

  looking down long beaks, warily watching me.

  I slow, pedal past them quietly as I can,

  out of respect, perhaps reverence

  for their magnificence of essence,

  fear for how perilous is their existence,

  thankful for proof of being, cranes and mine,

  as we each acknowledge the other, eyes meeting.

  Clouds

  A bushy-browed old man

  chases a white poodle

  across a blue meadow

  though he knows

  white clouds won’t return

  any more than his youth

  or bad dogs will,

  no matter how loud he rumbles.

  Fluffy!

  Damn you, Fluffy;

  you get your ass back here.

  Come on, Fluffy, dang you.

  Fluffy! Fluffy!

  Rain Delay

  rain

  rain

  rain

  rain

  rain

  delay

  rain delay

  rain delay

  rain delay

  rain delay

  rain delay rain delay rain delay

  raindelay raindelay raindelay

  raindelayraindelayraindelayraindelay

  delay delay delay

  rain rain rain

  delay rain delay rain

  delay

  rain

  rain

  rain

  de lay

  rain

  de lay

  Play Ball!

  February Blue

  It’s February 23rd, a Saturday,

  in Avon, Minnesota;

  the snow is “up to my ass” deep,

  but the sky is blue, February blue,

  a shade paler than June blue,

  but full with promise of Spring.

  If I position myself just so

  at my writing table, all I see is sky.

  With the first spring training game

  playing on the radio,

  I imagine a towering fly ball

  climbing into my field of blue vision,

  I imagine a centerfielder in Florida,

  palm trees waving in a warm wind

  beyond the outfield fence,

  pulling his sunglasses over his eyes,

  pounding his glove three times

  before gathering in that fly ball

  like people believe god gathers in souls,

  never making an error.

  Sharon Springs, Kansas

  The sky blows like a blue blanket

  hanging on a clothesline

  on the outskirts of Sharon Springs,

  a horizon you’ll never reach

  even at eighty miles an hour;

  and you don’t care

  because you’re from Minnesota,

  where you’re always looking inward,

  the tall trees holding up their arms,

  blocking every horizon,

  preventing you from seeing

  too far ahead or behind.

  You think if you awoke

  under a sky this wide

  every morning of your life,<
br />
  things would be different with you.

  Moon Haiku

  a crescent moon hangs

  in ethereal blue sky

  miracle of light

  This Pale Moon Floating

  It’s just the view

  from my point of view,

  just geometry, really,

  the work of gravity,

  this pale moon,

  barely visible,

  floating in blue sky.

  Mathematics could explain the moon

  moving in its orbit of the planet,

  but math can’t explain beauty,

  the stirring of tides in the soul,

  why I call a crescent moon ethereal,

  light, a miracle.

  Poetry doesn’t explain it either,

  though poetry reveals

  what knowledge conceals.

  Tango Luna

  What if

  instead of playing golf,

  the astronauts would have danced

  on the moon;

  done clumsy pirouettes in bulky spacesuits,

  simple box steps

  kicking up moon dust in starlight

  instead of just that one giant step?

  A slicing golf ball, even hit on the moon

  inspires no one.

  They could’ve danced a lunar tango

  in blue-green earthlight,

  leaving a pattern of intricate footprints

  that would’ve set everyone on our little planet

  dancing the same dance,

  the way we used to when the moon was full.

  While Watching the Leonid Meteor Shower

  I’m lying on the lawn,

  head propped on a stone,

  while Orion stalks the Great Bear,

  Sirius, the star dog, at his side.

  They pay no heed to burning meteors,

  shaken like rain from the lion’s mane.

  I envy the Sky Hunter his long life,

  while in the brief flashes of fiery dust,