Contest 2 Second Place
Marvin Lurie
contact: marvjl@aol.com

Unfinished Things

On the road out of town,
past the last straggle of houses,
each further one more disheveled,
as if some force of town-ness
dissipates at the edges
so that houses become random
and roads wander from the grid,
there is a cement pad and stack
of pre-fab roof trusses,
weathered and gray from winters and summers
sitting out uncovered.

Someone meant to build something.
What ever energy inspired his plan
petered out past the end of town.
It must be too hard to keep at it there,
looking out at unmarked ground.
You find unfinished things at that border
where people don't cross over
into what might happen.
Over there is a revealing light.
Ghosts can cast shadows
of the past. Hidden selves
can be exposed.

Rituals

A few roses hold back summer colors
long after leaves have clogged the rain gutters.
My wife is making fried green tomatoes
from those that started too late.
Their floured slices look like our lawn
with its first light snow.
What has not been laid in for winter
will not be.
We once raised a goose for this season.
All summer he patrolled the frontiers of our yard
and only stood down to eat the corn we gave him.
I haven't forgotten that goose,
how he looked in my eyes when I came for him.
Together we entered that ancient ritual:
death given, death to be received.

The Slough

A low flat bridge, not much longer than wide,
hidden by grass,
crossed the narrow end of the slough.
I stepped up on its dry platform to take in the rushes
and willow saplings lining the flow
and found an island in a world of barely seen shapes
slipping away underwater,
frogs escaping onto hidden watery paths,
the stare of a sculpture-still heron,
a silent blackbird swaying on the tallest cattail
over blue and white reflections.
The world slowly recovered
from the sudden sound of boots on wood,
from my long shadow and predator's scent.
The heron took a measured step.
The blackbird trilled
and flashed his scarlet shoulders.
Frogs came back to the shore.
Fish tailed back under the bridge.
A muskrat, swimming, turned to look at me,
as a commuter might
who sees something unusual beside the road
and turned back to its journey.

There Is A Star Nursery In The Horse Head Nebula

Beware the night sky, brother,
with its ten thousand billion stars
it's sending us the answer.
There is the hunter Orion,
only a thousand million miles away,
and his horse's mane is filled with stars,
a clouds of stars
a thousand million times brighter
than our brightest weapons,
streams of newborn stars
flowing into being
arcing out to create new worlds
seeking the next great experiment
soon brother, soon.

Fishing

At dusk I was at the shore
casting. My lure, catching only glints
of the last light, settled soundlessly
into the water. Leaves and twigs eddied,
pushed together
against the shore, some sank,
some floated away.
We were all together
in the same place once,
standing around a few branches burning on old ashes,
smoke mixing with our breaths,
waiting to start a hunt,
as if some augury
about the best time could be divined
from how sparks rose in the filtered light,
one who died before we were ready,
one who left the city
one who is lost to us
somewhere, one who is not well
and waiting to leave, and me. I don't hunt
anymore. I stand at the shore and cast.