When I found the beautiful white bones on the
desert, I picked them up and took them home.
I have used these things to say what is to me
the wideness and wonder of the world…
Georgia O’ Keeffe

1
Chiming time
Of the old frontier clock
Hangs in the silence,
You hear your own voice
Through the howling wind.

2
Sifting sand
Drifting through
A broken windowpane
Counting sand minutes
Hourglass at midnight.

3
Awake at night,
You lie still, listening
To the wings of a dream
In the sand against the windows
Mimicking raindrops.

4
Traffic noise,
Fading shouts of daily toil
Street clatter,
Discord imprinted
In a forsaken ghost town.

5
A fragile gift
From the high desert,
Bleached bones
Of longhorn cattle
A blossom of jimson weed.

6
Silent skull, buried
Deep in the high chaparral,
A canyon’s violet shadows
Echo with desert coyotes
Calling down the moon.

7
The flickering reflection
Of an iridescent dragonfly
Skims the surface
Of a monsoon pond
In a distant dune.

8
It is the very young fry
That never make it home,
That grow memories
Of the winged seasons,
As iridescent as a blackbird’s throat.

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Edward Baranosky’s work emphasizes the ever-changing moments of the sea. As a poet-artist he crosses the channels and pathways between the visual and the textual. Published in Eastern Structures, Haiku Avenue, Lynx Journal, Northern New England Review, Mid-Atlantic Review, Crossing Lines, Comstock Review among others. At 79, he is still emerging. He currently lives in Toronto, Canada.