Flood Plain – A Poetry Reading

Coaxed by the garish sheen
of Versailles gold that’s coating
the near horizon, I take the day’s
final hour out walking with no
assurance of return. I’m falling
east heading towards that healing
space where sea and salt marsh
marry and a path of crushed shells
rises from water to where wind
combs the leaves of wind-spun
trees with branches entwined,
some leaning sideways as if they
are preparing to resurrect a moon
that remains hidden from view or
perhaps they, too, are eager to bury
a season’s worth of burdens in a
damp coffer of silt, continuing on
with this broken life as silently as
the channels that run past shuttered
cottages leading into reed pools
where, weighted with salt, they
leisurely spool for a time, like
pebble-struck rings, and then
feign rest, provoking an uneasy
pause where one can still sense
the slow leaking of sound and the
absence of so much more than light
while now-distant tides fall away
in a tremulous thinning like a grief
that’s been graciously erased only
to return with a widening emptiness.

Looking for more poetry? You’ll find plenty more at the MockingOwl Roost!

• From a Distance – Poetry
• At Daybreak – Poetry Reading
• Be Still – Poetry
• The Way Cats Wake Up to a Passion of Birds – Poetry Reading
• Dread-Mind – Poetry
• 1865 – Poetry

John Muro

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A resident of Connecticut and a lover of all things chocolate, John Muro has authored two volumes of poems - In the Lilac Hour and Pastoral Suite - in 2020 and 2022, respectively. He is a three-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize, a nominee for the Best of the Net Award and, more recently, he received a 2023 Grantchester Award. John's work has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including Acumen, Barnstorm, Delmarva, Moria, River Heron, Sky Island and the Valparaiso Review.

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