Within Shadows
B
of Cypress Trees
the ancient muttering road winding through the bayou descends into the underworld of submerged strangeness
finding a turtle in the mud -a serendipitous counterbalance of innocence to the fang-rimmed muck of experience there's a boy rowing a weathered boat his doubt a scowl an indignant intrusion into the lantern-lit shanty of the old wives' tales
She walks in white, gossamer and cold, looking for him on every road.
Merideth Grue
about the runaway flower girl lost in the garden maze her lacy lilac shift recovered in a hive of gelded bees about the wayward child at the Baptist picnic whose bright curiosity discovered the locked door beneath leaf-covered lake water
Hillary Lyon
Water
There in the water beside you— Feel it, that pocket that makes you shiver so. It is the soul of one who has drowned. Feel how the vagrant soul wafts in the water. How cold the soul is without its host. It drifts ceaselessly with the currents As shall yours. Come, child, let me baptize you.
Robert E. Petras 50