THE ESSENTIALS OF THE IDYLL

Alenka

Stephen Aldrich

Karen Rickel

THE ESSENTIALS OF THE IDYLL

It is sweetest right next to the sky.

Just before you cross the line.

The air is limpid.

The sea has forgotten

About waves for a few hours.

Words have tracks

As we talk.  They look

Like tiny wrens, full of

Close shadings, a bright beak

Flashes; hard to see when

We’re in the woods.

Nothing has a surface.

We are inside of everything.

I was hoping you wouldn’t

Get this far with this poem.

I was hoping the images would

Continue on their own and make

A story for you, elicit a sensation

That would capture you,

Provide some transportation.

Instead, here I am alone

With you, amazed at the color

Of the sky, the way the breeze tricks

It’s way through Summer,

The kind of quiet, working

Like this precipitates.

Before you go, one Summer when

I was about eight years old,

My father stopped the car as dark 

Was coming.  While the children and

my mother watched, he walked into a

Small woods near Lake Ontario

To catch fireflies for us to see up close.

The woods were a great flashing field

Filled with millions of lights, millions.

I have never seen anything like that

Evening ever since then, until now.