Looking East
by Catherine Grossman
On the deck above Cayuga Lake
awake before my family and the dawn,
on hand for the sun’s blaring rise.
It’s
done now, nothing large enough
as
a cloud to get in its way—
a
terrifying white gold track
blazes
across calm water—
reprimanding
me—you are far
from home.
I am, but that’s a fool’s trail
built
for water spiders. I’ll stay here
and
track what’s left of me
after
hours of not breathing—that is,
I’m
not sure of anything. The wind
is
stirring. Maybe I am this rented house,
its
dusty corners and mementos
hanging
on walls. I have no memories.
The
water is blue, black and lemon green
where
weeds show through. The wake
is
a meter-less lento, licking the shore,
the
pace of a tongue on an ice cream cone.
Now,
tender skins of summer leaves—
sweet
cymbals, again and again, twisting
in
their places, playing continuo,
continuo—a
woodwind now, a vireo.
Bio:
Catherine Grossman is a member emeritus of the Women's Creative Writing Group;
she has an MFA from Warren Wilson. Her last published poem is in the Tipton
Poetry Journal. She teaches at Ivy Tech Community College and at the Lafayette
Writer's Studio, in Lafayette, Indiana.