Refractions

Abstract

Refractions Gladys Swan (bio) Landscape with Apollo Slowly given back by light the sycamore emerges into form: figure and ground; the darker trunk a curve over the creek, twinned by floating dark beneath. Blink of sun through turning leaves, and light shimmers up the trunk; below, reflections dissolving into nuance and suggestion. It plays the eye, dazzled with transience, while I struggle, brush in hand, with presence, with image, with color: woods and water, the great tree— all this I have, never to have, all in the fleeting. But, hidden in a guess, out of this dark, this dreaming into wakefulness, I catch a spark, glowing as it grows into a dialogue with light. Light playing through forms that sites itself within, and the landscape, as though wakened by the sighting, given a sentience in this sensing, opens the eye as I go stumbling after the god till there is nothing that does not see me. [End Page 67] Bat Middle of the night: a commotion of wings, spin of a dark body across our fractured sleep. We flail awake, grab the flashlight to hurl a beam at the alien presence, though we know what's there, the flying mouse that gobbles its weight in insects—somehow its fabulous radar got its signals crossed. At night we hear gibbering under the eaves, close carefully the door at dusk to leave with the dark what darkness fosters. Only now one has crept inside, bound by a cage of walls and doors that would keep it out. Its erratic path describes a panic in tune with a dread we can't shrug off. We don't want it here, breaking past boundaries, the safeguards of sleep, the slow progression toward the light that puts to rest their flutter, the flirt of the dark within the dark, the dark that ends the dark. Angle of Refraction The same trees neglected with a passing glance, the eye caught in its own unseeing, the mind unmindful—everything lying within the ordinary weather. [End Page 68] A certain day coalesces in its blue, the trees, a skeleton crew against the sky; towheaded grass ghosting along the rise; a stinging wind. All in a low sun at horizon's edge, tilting toward December—we know all that. Yet now the slanting rays catch the panes of an ordinary window, transform them into blazing ports that set fire to the lake. For a moment only—before water dulls back into its skin and the leaking day— the flare of difference and delight. At the Helm of the Day The cat sits at the helm of the day, tail curling up into a question: Why is the sky falling into flakes of white? Is some great dog clawing the clouds apart in search of a flea? Or shaking the cold out of its bones? I cannot see beyond the glass. Below is an animal purring out its heat. I sit by the mouth of its warmth, my fur around me, paws tucked in. To go outdoors would be to meet the day with cold feet. Gladys Swan Gladys Swan, a regular contributor, has published fiction, reminiscences, and poetry in these pages for many years and has earned a Tate prize. Copyright © 2008 Bruce Allen