ASHEN COLORS

Before a summer rain there is a torpid silence,

Leaves face the sun, curled and wilted,

Dry with thirst and ashen colors,

Warped into dragon scales burned and strung across

Limbs that snap and fall to earth for cover;

Until the horizon changes.

Bearing gray over the sunlight

Leaves stir and turn their backs against a heavy wind

Picks up, beats out the morning’s dew,

Twists their arms behind their backs, and

Punches out all the light;

Before a stream of water drips over their edges

And clearly marks the surface dust.

Are the first signs of a heavy waterfall,

Rhythmic murmurs caught in a plunge

By leaves weighted and glossed over

By water too heavy to carry or hold

They bow to earth, dense and saturated in leaf tones,

With hypnotic, dulcet sounds, like insect hums,

Water steps forward and purrs in the cooled air flow

Leaves are dustless and hearing is restored.

© cmheuer, 2015

LIGHTNING BUGS

Broadcast at dusk or into the late night hours,

Signals blink on and off like beacons on dry land,

Dot and dash the dark wood line,

Grab my eyes in rapid flashes from left to right;

Erratic pulses of light meander and beckon,

Attract and confuse, leave the night in darkness--

Without a day’s illusions--

Create strokes on a dark slate.

Untranslated language written on air with light,

Messages I can’t decipher,

Transient words without sound,

Mating sonnets and warrior battle hymns.

With hands cupped to hold a heat-less flame,

I reach for one and then another, extinguished

Before my fingers can surround the flight

And seize a drop of light.

© cmheuer, 2015

SUNSPOTS IN THE WOODS

Sunspots wade across the forest floor.

Omitted tree and branch leaves

Publish and point out gap-streaming light that

Lingers until clock hands move and 

Change all the angles.

Trees fall, branches break, and

Empty spaces leave marks of different kinds that

Stretch across the earth or across my face.

Lost things spin out of place and disappear,

Unfound and forgotten in time;

Scars take their place--

Ephemeral light pale dashes that imply a

Back story of once upon a time

There were no missing pieces.

  

Highlight absence, draw a rough

Outline where the base of a trunk was set

In earth like a large foot and blotted the sunspots.

© cmheuer, 2015

NEW LEAVES

The Grand Opening begins with a simple wave,

Color-coded pale green and thin as paper;

Pollen dusts the air and every breath; and

Sun screens stretch across small ribs and veins,

As new leaves unfold in the pages of a new book,

Huddled together on the side of the read or the unread.

Each one takes its place in line;

Birdsong and petals are thrown into the air,

Scattered like sweets or confetti for bystanders;

Along the sprouting procession, there is a harbor of

Shade from the harsh, singed light spewed upon the

Growing march; it cools the rapid-fire production

Of a circus canopy spread across the tree tops,

Raised high on thick trunks, while wood-fiber sheets

Fan the air and stir the whispers 

Of what is to come before the next leaf

Opens, and each page read, instead of all others,

Collapses the wave. 

© cmheuer, 2015

BREAD CRUMBS

A pittance for the scavenger.

Scattered at the edge of the water to feed

Minnows that swarm in shallow depths;

Spread along the dirt path for birds to find;

Swept from the table or counter with a

Curved hand and flicked wrist.

Caught up in a twisted roll of the dice,

Scarcity asserts itself in bold deprivation;

Hunter-gatherers search for open landscapes

And the end of hunger in a noon or midnight

Crawl, flight, or stumble towards food

With desperate haste to break through the numbers’

Lock-jaw claim on the set of those who are starving,

Who scrounge for what can be found along the way,

Who battle against the odds,

Who covet tokens gleaned from stone.

While others bear arms;
stock guns and bombs;
take hoards;

destroy plows, herds, fields, and homes.

No more than a set of villains
who worship a dead-end set

and leave wanderers in stunned silence with

Bread crumbs in their pockets.

©cmheuer

TOTAL ECLIPSE

Candle-smoked pane of glass to view a ring of light;

A circus hoop on fire for a tiger to leap through;

Orbital motion foretold with atomic clock precision;

A new moon’s umbral shadow cast on earth

Tracks a round silhouette and cat eyes

Gathered in silence and darkness.

Minutes of time to see the paler fire wall,

Prominences and filaments,

Spewed out and seething,

An angry lion’s ruff;

An inferno around a black hole;

A sun eclipsed by a moon;

Reason eclipsed by myth.

Deep in the forest, light returns,

Cat eyes subside and slink away,

An unlit face slips out of sight

And in deep time will be too far away

To cover the sun.

© cmheuer, 2015

WASHING WINDOWS

Pollen streaked, dust smeared, and soot fingered

Until line of sight breaks, distance smudges, and

Vision reduces to a clouded lens.

Traveling light stops, and the past,

Thrown up against the glass like a bird in

Running flight, does not pass through.

Surged crest, fallen before the gaze connects,

Flounders unseen and lost at the edge of

Opaque squares set among the walls. 

Windows sketched in rooms and buildings,

Rag-washed and dried repetition clears a path

Through grime and soil for countless scenes. 

A long line of frames stored like album prints

Pocketed in clear, slip-in sheets for preservation

Grow pale and unfamiliar, disconnected.

The foreground uncoupled from the background

Until ladders are hauled out, cloths are gathered, and

Washing windows begins again. 

©  cmheuer, 2015