In lush counties the ripening sky’s a house
for hope; as gather billowed, clouded wings
on the crown of dusk, so night’s vessel brings
its black despair. I’ve seen John Eli house
them both; I’ve seen him clip his wings of grief
where set upon the patient morning’s vein,
his flighted creatures worry ‘round the flame.
Thereon he flints the torch that lights his grief
by daily footed shore; it beats its wings,
wet lung ebbing at his feet. Burn the pond
wherein she drowned; so goes the madman’s song.
The tired flame in ritual drowns and sings,
on and on, for twenty years; his purpose
hefted, burdenlike – his love the purer,
mine the less – forever to endure her,
of his obstinance bereft. Wind and wing;
I know the aviary of his mind,
for what is lost to him was also mine.
Kataryna Zharkovna is a poet born in Serbia, grown in Canada, and honed in Siberia. She holds a hard-won English Specialist’s degree from the University of Toronto, and her work can befound or forthcoming in magazines such as Sundial, Neologism, The Astorian, Mindfork and others. When not agonizing over giving form to the formless, shespends time befriending swans and taking care of two puckishly charming children.