Circular

by David Solway (September 2018)

Man Sitting in Living Room, Paul Wonner, 1964

The air is heavy with the coming storm.

Shadows and newsprint

litter the redbrick pavement.

He drinks a café crème in a patisserie

and wanders through the village

with its pageant of shops, restaurants and hotels.

The air is heavy with the coming storm.

Still he continues walking.

At the edge of the pasture

is a steep hill thick with oak and maple

rubbing out the sun.

Fallen tree limbs litter the ground

and a rustle of spent leaves

are bleeding copper and gold.

After breasting the crest

he glimpses the cottage,

shades drawn like the closed eyelids

of a deeply dreaming sleeper.

He enters.

And on the dining room table

littered with books and papers

involved as Mobius

or a dream writing to itself,

he finds the note. “The air is heavy . . .”

________________________________________
David Solway is a Canadian poet and essayist. His most recent volume of poetry, The Herb Garden, appeared in spring 2018 with Guernica Editions. A partly autobiographical prose manifesto, Reflections on Music, Poetry & Politics, was released by Shomron Press in spring 2016. A CD of his original songs, Blood Guitar and Other Tales, appeared in 2016. Solway’s current projects include work on a second CD, The Book of Love, with his pianist wife Janice Fiamengo and writing for the major American political sites such as PJ Media, American Thinker and WorldNetDaily.

Follow NER on Twitter @NERIconoclast