Six Poems
by Keith Melton
The Pine Barrens
The shanty wood king of clapboard
in a prism of hurly green,
spare and flat, like an acre of gloom laid out
in quadrangles.
Everywhere the farms give way to it
cabin-maker, coffin lid; lean furrows
no match for the charge;
a new day’s rant of forest upheaval
on the piedmont plain.
The creeping needles in a hillbilly rag
the cones and seeds in a glade
of these immortals.
Pale blue fir, transcendent spruce,
like the outstretched hands
of the working poor, turning a dollar among the pine.
In canyons and glades, the service of indenture
to harvest the land’s bounty
white pine, black pine, ancient loblolly
tall and upright;
like Lincoln himself, victorious.
Jekyll Island
Horizon laudatory, sunlight the perigee of simple
the fractions of God in a red oak leaf.
Alliances misbegotten, crimes unresolved,
identities long forgotten.
Still, a sconce of castle trees 300 years strong
crowns the low country,
and beyond the marsh, the rivers, and docks
accessible by ferry
to bring winter’s weary to the garden.
Architects, and surveyors, engineers, and carpenters
to establish a rich man’s grip;
the elocution of empire in the gathering gain.
The arbitrage of risk, in the waves and tides
time lost, and generations cast aside.
Visitors staring into the dark heart of wealth
not knowing the secret sorrows
of the earth, the slaves, the prisoners, the indentured
long forgotten; yet the land remains.
And the faces of yesterday still gather in the trees,
sailors, and pirates, to skiff
upon the breeze, their ruins reclaimed
their spirits wandering, once again.
At Western Lake
In a pale eloquence of blue
white slips of cloud pass over Western Lake.
Birds fly overhead
perhaps knowing the secret spawn of the earth
finches, tanager; sparrow, modest teal, diving,
thriving, lusting for tadpole and shad.
Windblown, curving, twists of oak imitate art;
while feminine in the shallows
crystal water shimmers against the dunes.
Dappled needles of longleaf pine
sway in the hollows. Seagulls
spinning whitecaps into a turquoise sea.
Red Fox
A study in autumn stills a muted blue sky.
Clouds leaning against gray trees;
thickets of pine
whispering of the wind’s carry.
When he comes out of brush, straight and bold and frugal,
an elegant and generous surprise.
Streaking low to the earth
until full tilt he is soaring, a flesh saber
hitting heart meat on the fly.
Red torso with flecks of white, black ringed tail
witness to the paucity of shadow, his brief
appearance, a wonder; his vanishing
the heart’s sudden plunder; yet in disappearance
our loss, but his survival.
Roadkill
Wishing space was still a pediment in the sky’s victory
a bloom of yappy paws
at the feeder’s teat.
His audition, once fleet, a silhouette, truly
never in retreat. Tightrope walking
the graveyard’s scoot,
his fate, the asphalt boot
gravity’s confederate to that last yonder.
And not by design, in his fall, we find
roadkill a bargain anytime;
squirrel meat, a sign
the vulture’s foreboding, coming like the mail?
5 Buzzards
Sideways, the tension of light in the sky--
and suddenly, soaring, high
5 buzzards gliding, seeking a breeze
remarkable, their warning, an elegant plea.
Once closeted in the trees, now majestic above
no longer hidden, their shadows become
gray and black mimes, like performers on air
wings opening, soon to disappear.
Now far lies horizon, slender and ever stoic,
tall pines trembling, live oaks, heroic
while buzzards fly on traces of wind,
to warn death comes, again; and again.
BIO: Mr. Melton is a graduate of The American University and Georgia Tech. His work has appeared in numerous publications including Amethyst, Agape Review, The Argyle, Big City Lit, Compass Rose, Confrontation, The Galway Review, The Lyric, The Miscellany, Monterey Poetry Review, and others. He lives in Bluffton, SC.