Red On Gray
Slanting through the oval
window of this jet,
a sunbeam turns a plastic cup
of cranberry juice into
a crystal goblet of melted rubies
– hot magic –
a fragment of mythology
on the gray shelf of a long,
ordinary day.
No Hands
Who hasn’t dreamed of being
that seabird
floating over sand and surf,
each feather quivering
in the ensconcing,
salt-sharpened rush?
You arc, dip, rise, and ride out
over gray-green water
that ripples along and occasionally curls
over the sea wall.
You hang in the wind,
nearly still in its force-flow,
and glance down at some person
rooted in the sand
and gazing up at you,
dreaming.
Something More
The right words come -- if they come --
when consciousness tilts into light
as bank swallows flow
in the feel of what no one sees,
banking off eddies of air in air.
The cross-angle of your gaze
through slanting October light
reveals something more
in what is always there:
silver shavings gleaming
on bird bath surface
or a honey-colored luminosity poured
over the new leather
of drying orange peels.
Unhinged
The holding pattern
loses hold, and we fly oblong
arcing into whole oceans
of sky – uncharted
unheld, unhinged
from the pivot like
a door swinging loose
and walking away.
About the Author
Scott Thompson is a poet, non-fiction author, editor, photographer, and education foundation officer. He holds a BA in English Literature from Principia College and an MA in English Literature from Northeastern University. He lives with his wife, daughter, and cat in Glen Rock, New Jersey. Praise for his first book, Leading From the Eye of the Storm: Spirituality and Public School Improvement (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), includes the following endorsement from author Parker J. Palmer: “The America I love now suffers from a toxic brew of fear, cynicism, and false bravado that is taking a terrific toll on everything from individual to institutional life. If we are to deal with the spiritual emptiness behind all this – and find responses that honor the needs of a pluralistic democracy – our public schools must become places where questions of meaning and purpose are taken seriously. Here is a superbly written book that will help educational leaders step up to that challenge. Using tools ranging from poetry, to social analysis, to interviews with change agents, to case studies of transformation, Scott Thompson makes a powerful contribution to our understanding of the spiritual depths that are hidden, but not lost, in our individual and collective lives.”
Acknowledgements
I am deeply grateful to my friend David Andrews and my wife June Thompson, who carefully read and commented on the typescript for this chapbook. Their feedback was invaluable. I should also acknowledge that the poem "What I'd Say to William Stafford About 'Ask Me'" was originally published in my first book, Leading From the Eye of the Storm (Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2005).
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