The Shine Journal
Exceptional Flash, Poetry, Art and Photography!
Three From Leland James
The arctic night
Crawls down upon the ice.
Last light a strip of gray,
Amber where it touches the horizon:
A tired eye about to close.
Tired of barrenness and cold.
Snowshoe tracks faint from the dawn
I now retrace on groaning ice.
An Ancient Beast nightwind howls,
Rising up in gales of swirling snow.
Away too long, too long alone.
The frozen lake, my soul.
No light shines before me.
Dark cabin windows mock my coming from the cold,
The sunrise fire long turned to shivering ashes.
My refuge reclaimed,
Like my tracks upon the snow.
No trail of smoke to greet me.
The cabin door as frail as lace.
Rime frost, the morning fog,
Winter’s breath crept in between the logs,
Drifts, a ghostly shroud, upon the cabin floor.
A skim of ice where water spilled lies near the stove.
A careless act, like this late coming from the cold.
The winter unforgiving.
With habits frozen deep,
I light the lamp, I bolt the door.
The amber eye has closed,
Ending the world outside.
Windows black as midnight ice.
The Beast now screams against the cabin walls,
Claws digging at the rag-stuffed cracks.
The rags hard frozen, brittle.
The Beast, enraged, grasping for its prey.
The lamp light faints, a jagged glow,
Stuttering as if the rattled windows were its voice.
Saying I must hurry,
Hurry with the stove.
The iron heart of northern places.
I choose the precious wood, placing it with care.
A sacred nest of twigs I lay beneath.
With trembling hand, the match igniting.
I watch the fire awhile, still kneeling on the floor.
The split wood blackens slowly.
Wisps of flame darting like phantoms.
I close the iron door, listening for the draft:
The fire’s first steady breath, the chimney warmed.
Listening for the promise that the fire will go.
Praying deliverance from barrenness and cold,
Away too long, too long alone,
Pray to deny the Beast my soul.
Drifting into dreams of morning coals
Glowing like cherries in the snow.
ABANDONED BARN
Broad shoulders bent,
like a ninety years-old man,
wind beaten, sunboiled, in a field of weeds,
sinking down upon a stone foundation,
empty window-eyed staring in upon itself
asking how it came to this and why?
THE CAREFUL SPARROW
A swagger of grackles had come before him,
Flying down from the railing where they perched
To survey the porch with its black umbrellas shading the tables
Laid with linen and silver, glasses of crystal and white cups
–the grackles sleek and long beaked.
Then the sparrow, the careful one, in auburn cap,
Came in plain dress, brown feathered, flecked black and gray
As if worn by weather, a friar’s habit, quite unexceptional.
There were parrots gone wild in the palms beyond
–parrots yellow and green and bright orange.
Those that had come before, the grackles, walked boldly
Searching under the tables, checking the cracks
Between bright colored Spanish tiles, red and blue,
Looking for crumbs, but there were none it seemed
–boys, in starched white jackets, ever sweeping the tiles.
Now, the careful sparrow on the tiles where the grackles had been,
Moving in little steps and flutters, with eyes like black stones darting,
Sharp eyes, sharper, more patient than the grackles before him,
Finds a bit of cracker and a sprinkle of sugar fallen from a tart
–served on a silver tray to a man in blazer and tie.
The careful sparrow seems untroubled by his plain dress.
Seems not to notice the palace-like opulence all around,
Unlike the parrots, unlike the man in blazer and tie,
Unlike the bold grackles or the anxious boys in white jackets
–unlike me in my studied uncaring, my nonchalance.
What a graceful sparrow, this careful unassuming sparrow:
God’s eye on the sparrow, resting a moment peacefully there.
Not because the sparrow is plain or small, not these things at all.
But because the careful sparrow, wanting so little, finds much
–and accepts all.
My Bio: Leland James is the pen name of Leland James Whipple. He is the author of two novels and a book of essays. He has published in both academic and popular periodicals, ranging from Galaxy Science Fiction and Twilight Zone to the Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine and Production Engineering. Recently he has focused his writing on poetry, winning the 2008 Portland Pen Poetry Contest and the 2008 Writers Forum Short Poem contest, and placing runner up for the 2008 Fish International Poetry Prize. He has also had several other honorable mentions and publications including Inspirit, New Millennium Writings, Ruminate, By Line, HarĂah Breath of Heaven, Voices of Israel, and Cyclamens and Swords.
My Motivation:
ABANDONED BARN: longtime obsession with the beauty and pathos of abandoned barns
THE CAREFUL SPARROW: I appear in the poem, an observation of the grackles, the sparrow, others, and me
NORTH LAKE, Winner, Portland Pen Poetry Contest 20008 Published in Portland Pen Letters mwjhenson@msn.com & Runner Up, the 2008 Fish International Poetry Prize Published in The Fish Anthology 2008,Durrus Barry, Co. Cork, Ireland info@fishpublishing.com
BARN Winner, 2008 Short Poem Contest Published in Writer's Forum Bournemouth BH1 9EH, UK http://www.writers-forum.com/contact.html
THE CAREFUL SPARROW,3rd Prize Portland Pen Poetry Contest 2008 Published in Portland Pen Letters King City, Oregon mwjhenson@msn.com. Honorable Mention, Inspirit Poetry Contest Published in Inspirit Autumn, 2008 Cumberland, Pennsylvania http://www.gbgm-umc.org/baughmanumc/litmag.htm
Email TSJ:
shinesubmit@fastmail.us
