The Most Magnificent Ice Sculpture
It’s Thanksgiving
on an island
in the Pacific
and a white swan
is poised mid-takeoff
in the center
of a festive table
in the US Air Force base
officers’ club,
wings spreading
over every imaginable
meat and side dish
and condiment
and pie.
Local talent
plays Bach
on three violins
and the sky outside
is quiet
with no F15 fighters
flying today
over coral reefs
bleaching
in the ocean.
Ice thawed
weighs the same
as it did frozen
but takes up
more space.
Soon maps
will be etched
with dotted lines
to show what used to be –
here been monsters
and islands
and swan.
After the Dying
Nothing but gray – crosshatched gray
earth, gray sky charred to the horizon
through gray-scale branches. Then comes
the rain, cupfuls in drops, and the rivers
reborn, soil learning again
to drink, violets rising to split gray
into green and purple. The ash trees
still stand bleak in their nakedness
but grass grows once more between them.
Soon a deer, who survived the fires
but lost her world to their darkening,
moves in, foraging, mouth open
to receive it – a banquet of color,
its light touch bathing her tongue.
Lisken Van Pelt Dus teaches writing, languages, and martial arts in western Massachusetts. Her award-winning poetry can be found in many print and online journals, such as Conduit, The South Carolina Review, and upstreet, as well as in her chapbook, Everywhere at Once (2009, Pudding House) and full-length book, What We’re Made Of (2016, Cherry Grove).