kris t kahn

DUSK

Yes it hit us hard
that year. The tips
of the cornstalks
felt it too: a thunder
too swift to fully gauge;
the fields pressed flat
by a wraithlike wind.
We walked over them,
the blades, the greens
tainted purple by
that vanishing sky.
We catalogued damage:
crops, uprooted shoots,
our boots stained with
the remains of radishes.
It was not quite a catastrophe
but something we did not
even try to reason --
instead we stayed until dawn,
each weighted morning,
to watch the scene
in reverse, reparations
carried out by a force
that relished its own power.
The shoots erect again.
The fields emerald, radiant.
The landscape dewed over.
It was as if nothing had
ever happened, not even
a blemish to the scene.
How sick of us to return
each evening. To gawk
at destruction and
its inevitable renewal,
not thinking the dusk
would eventually uncover
sly ways to incorporate us.

Date of Birth: July 17, 1979 Location: United Kingdom Occupation: Writer/Postgraduate Student Email: blackswan2@aol.com Website: http://analecta.net/blackswan Publications: The Cortland Review, The Absinthe Literary Review, Verse Libre Quarterly, The Wolf, Rattle, Stirring, The Melic Review, 2River Books: Arguing with the Troubadour; Arcana Awards: 2003 Pushcart Nomination; shortlisted for the 2003 Spokane Prize in Poetry

- April 2004 - My Father Meets a Mexican Dusk April 26, 1991 4:55PM Wichita, Kansas Planting Begonias On Being Asked To Send My Photo For A Bio On The Web Wealth