from Republic (Toad Hall Press 2010)
Foxfire
A foxfire scattering of stars
and a lone planet hang low
over the northeast, where the wind
comes from, down like a coyote,
nose down, its warm tongue licking
a chill out of the earth, the dawn’s
chill of stiff awakenings after
the night’s dancers, their supple sweat,
the way it loves the body, then sinks
into salt rest.
The Earth last
night sank so, its blush and rose
twilight giving up the light so well
that those in their houses walked out
into the roads and yards, arms folded,
their skins flushed with an excitement
drawn of this pink light, and discussed
it – not the coyote’s old trail
they stood on, but the huge,
evanescent cathedral of light
that reared before them like a great
dancer, his headdress streaming
its eagle wildness, while they talked
their awe of its wordless beauty.
The subtle dawn, strewn with foxfire,
now reclaims. It licks the wounds
that words have made in us, that we
in that first step down made of ourselves.
Jim Beall is an astrophysicist, a poet, and an author on issues related to public policy and national defense. He is on the faculty at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, and a senior consultant to the U.S. government. His first book of poetry, Hickey, the Days, was published in 1981.
You can purchase Republic here.