A DUAL PERSPECTIVE By Patrick Erickson A DUAL PERSPECTIVE
Does the edge of glory really work?Are you skittish?Are you skirting the edgewalking the walk toeing the line?Does it glow like the glowwormlike its double its wormhole its twinlike those lighting strips that direct you down the aisle to your seatin a dark theater full of dark matter full of suspense and no repose?Are you sitting down for thisor teetering on the brink and over the edge and down the wormholecoming out God knows wherethe edge of glory or the razor’s edge?If I could support light wavesif I could refract light like thatif I could be on their wavelength on the button on the beamI could put them on I could wear them as a gown multi-facetedif I could arc like thatif I could refract light like a prismI could go the distance I could be the go-betweenWe could all be as oneand go for broke. Black-eyed SusanA sometimes upright annual with alternating basal leaves and stout branching stems covered by course hairhence brown BettyIt has daisy-like flowers with yellow ray-florets compassing brown or black dome-shaped disc-floretsthus yellow ox-eye daisyThe genus name Rudbeckia honors Olaus Rudbecka botany professor at the University of Uppsalaand one of Linnaeus’s teachersLook for the flowerheads in late summer and early autumnLook for them in Maryland where they are designated the state flowerLook for a blanket of them in the winner’s circle around the winner’s neck at the Preakness StakesThe roots of the black-eyed Susan are an astringenta wash for sores a poultice for snake bitesan infusion for colds and worms in childrena diuretic and eardrops for earachesButterflies are drawn to them in large color-masses. LIKE JOHN CAGEI could say “Take my heart”But what of my heart strings? Snap!What of my rib cage?I could say “You can strum my ribs if you can play me like a fiddle”like John Cageno strings attachedLike John Cage I could whisper sweet nothingsBut then the silence would be deafening. TWO STICKS IN THE MUDCan two sticks in the mudshould you have two sticks to rub togethercompete with green reeds much less communewhen the cattails along the river bank ever fluent speak in tongues?
Can a tongue-tied couple so entwined enmeshwhen one is root bound and the other rootlesswhen mud meets mud root upon rootthe Sea of Reeds one daythe River Styx the next? About the Author: Patrick Theron Erickson, a resident of Garland, Texas, a Tree City, just south of Duck Creek, is a retired parish pastor put out to pasture himself. His work has appeared in Grey Sparrow Journal, Cobalt Review, and Burningword Literary Journal, among other publications, and more recently in Adelaide Literary Magazine, The Main Street Rag, Tipton Poetry Journal, Right Hand Pointing, and Danse Macabre. |
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