Marianne Szlyk

Return to Maryvale Park

This stream is part of the landscape
I am limited to. In this place, 

I make my home, look but don’t touch,
watch for turtles on brown-gray rocks.

But I don’t see them this summer.
Is the time wrong, too cold, too hot,

water too high, park too noisy
for these turtles. Fish continue

circling stones that fool me to think
that they are turtles. Stones don’t move.

Again I don’t see the turtles
who lived here last year. Without them,

this landscape will become a blur,
the stream’s stench, the buzz of voices.

I will walk my circuit of streets
lined with red and white azaleas,

springtime-roses, work trucks and dogs
guarding tidy, brick homes.

 

1979

            After Herbie Hancock’s “Finger Painting”

Piano notes drift
like dancing snow
along the Charles River.

Orange light
drowns out the last stars.

Concrete towers,
Harvard’s red-brick buildings,
thick hedges
conceal the city.

The notes won’t stick.

Melting on asphalt, they
turn to rain.
Drivers stop and start.
Ten years ago
Armstrong walked on the moon.

Now it’s too
far.  It’s easier
to imagine
caravans leaving town 
while snow falls.

In this world, the sky
belongs to birds
and clouds alone. Drivers
without stars
follow the river.

 “1979” was originally published in Bold + italic.

 

Midsummer Moonrise

            After “Midsummer Moonrise” by Dwight William Tryon (1892)

 

At first glance, you see
just prettiness,
a haze of green, flurries
of brushstrokes,
scent of turpentine.

Be patient.
Yellow and white flowers
appear, plants
for which you’ve no name.
You might know them

 

as you walk past them. Or
you might not.
The gash of silver
water opens
up, reflecting chalky

 

moonrise, yet
water does not dis-
solve this parched moon. 
With time, you see needles
on pine trees,

copper blight elsewhere
as wind rifles
through.  The gash of water
widens.  You
smell the earth at night.

 

Originally published in Mad Swirl