Fantasias in First Light
Before things get going, I take in the ashy scent
of fireplace embers; I stand by the window, wrapped
in this beige stucco house made of money from Mom and Dad.
The wind storms' clarity heaves the elms back and forth. I
move my tongue around inside my mouth; it's
stung with cayenne and ginger sprinkled on eggs.
Work and sleep will come along in their times this day.
My wife will sleep late in the gold-curtained (and so
gold-lit) guest room. Her cat and actually, each object there
stretches, yawns, stirs itself - while the poetry scampering in my head
means nothing. The trees thrash; all around me
professors in area schools debate with teachers aides
about the whens and hows of rhetorical modes. Or
whether the outer stars will hold. Close around me
by our window, the morning lake's made perfectly horizontal
by gravity, and I speak lines about a certain air that
teems with fish, bioluminescent lives in deep abyssal zones,
in more grand, more cold waters. And darker. I
rub the back of my neck, speak in thought, reassure myself,
make the day a wonder: Yes, air teeming with perfected fantasies,
the complete, assembled perceptions that jump for joy. And so it is,
the small boat of my day heads out onto waters and I
extend outward like its wake, my eyes the magical charms
I wear out my living body to understand.
Tim Bellows
Tim is a writing teacher, poet and photographer devoted to wilderness, contemplative travels, and the divine and quirky ways of words. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, he has published work in over 150 literary journals and also in Sunlight from Another Day, Poems In & Out of the Body and in A Racing Up the Sky (Eclectic Press). His poems appear in Desert Wood, an Anthology of Nevada Poets and in Wild Stars (Starry Puddle Press). He teaches writing at Sierra College in Northern California. Tim edits an e-newsletter, LIGHTSHIP NEWS, a strong focus on the spiritual dimensions of poetry and innovative thought! (Go to star999@sbcglobal.net to sign on!)
