BTT #63: Walking the Dog on the Fairway at 9 pm

Photo by Lona Gynt.  Taken on our neighborhood golf course.

Walking the Dog on the Fairway at 9 pm

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Walking the dog on the fairway at 9 pm

By Lona Gynt, August 2019.

.

I.

I have never

Taken up golf.

Life has always

Been too full

Of other things

I love to do already

For which there

Is no time.

Like holding you

As I used to

When we thought

We knew the score,

When we left and came

Together at every

Placement tasting daily

The certainty lifting off

The rivers like a breeze

Whispering an end to the

Green and weight

Of summer air

Turning crisply in the

Times and seasons

Of what our

Love was for.

.

II.

Now I am here

In the darkness

Standing near the

Grass so clipped

And scrubbed

That even the

Lightning bugs

Have fled to

More obscure

Corners beyond

Reach of whatever

It might be

We are allowed to

Be spraying these days.

You are not that

Far away, sitting

In our home

Quietly, studying the

World that finds us

In our phones,

Divided from each other

By neither distance nor

The hand of crepitude, but

By the lifting of layers,

As when the green

Starts fading

From the leaves

Not to whither, but

To burn

With colors

That were

Simply waiting

To be seen.

.

III.

But it is too

Dark now

To care

About that, how

Could you have known

I was there

When that person who

We thought I was

Fought so strongly

Holding me down

Beneath the waters with

Those hands, and

Press of breathings…

Small wonder

You did not see me

Until he faded.

He did not end

With a crash or a bang

Or a loosening of the hold,

Or even with a whimper,

But just the

Weightless passing

That brought me

To the sunlight,

Shining now

A short time

From branches

Draping red

And orange and gold

Before the

Snows descend.

.

IV.

I never let

You know me,

So now you cannot

Want me.

So here I stand

Fairly certain only

That the grass here

Still greens at noontime,

And my dog is

In her first heat

And so, is tugging

Tautly in her leash

Seeking exposition

Of other mysteries,

And that strand

Of weary starlight

Hurtling out

From the furnaces

Of a dead epoch

Passing first the

Silver clouds silent

Above the trees

Breaching entry

To my eyes

To be grappled, crushed,

Wrestled and destroyed,

Forged to some

New thing

From what it was,

Landing in the

Rounded nesting

Of my mind,

Becoming

What it sees.

.

.

This poem is also available in the publication listed below  🙂

January 2020:

Three poems accepted to the annual anthology for Out Loud HSV

“Walking the Dog on the Fairway at 9 pm”

“So you think you are better than Lady Macbeth”

“Come Soft Snows”

Available soon at this site:

http://outloudhsv.com/shop

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-Lona Gynt  August 2019.

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This is posted for dVerse Open Link Night (OLN)  hosted by Mish.  Here is the link

Open Link Night #249

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But I had wanted to link it to Amaya’s dVerse prompt for “Smoke and Mirrors.”  But I was late…

This is a wonderful prompt.   Here is the link:

Poetics: Smoke and Mirrors

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Since my poem takes place on a golf course, I am going to give you all sorts of links.  Amaya gives us a version of “The Panther” by Rilke in her post.  I have never found a version as beautiful as the original German.  But I think the most wonderful English translation is by Walter Arndt.  Here is a link to a site that has five different translations.  Find the one by Arndt, and tell me if I’m not right.  🙂

http://picture-poems.com/rilke/panther.html

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All rights reserved for text and images by Lona Gynt  August 2019.

Recited at Out Loud Huntsville, Open Mic Night 10-27-19.  Accepted for publication in Huntsville Anthology for January 20120