These poems are part of the special section, “Poems of U.S. History”, reflecting on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence selected by editors Carolivia Herron, Summer Tate, and Robert Bettmann. You can read more about the section on the Day Eight website here.
And swayed the russet moon
Hanging between the rim of the hill
And the twinkling boughs of the apple orchard,
You walked the shore in thought.
– Edgar Lee Masters
Bandits at three o’clock!
Explosive charges released
Thump into the gravity well
The target perimeter lit by arc lamps
Punctuated by signal flares and tracers
Brighter than a flood-tide noon.
Mayday…Mayday…Mayday…
Bail…Bail…Bail…
With machine gun fire out of tune
And swaying the russet moon,
Plummeting through the low clouds
Formed with spiraling flak
Toward bodies of steel, too soon
To wheel into the ground,
The only sound the insistent
Call of an owl, still
Testing its occult voice
Within the clamor of the ravens
Concealed in the old mill
Hanging between the rim of the hill
The skimming bombers scream
Above the quiet tides.
No runway…Clearing approach…
Mayday, Do you read? Mayday…
Last Position? Ditching…
Bearing hard to starboard.
Do you read? Mayday, Do you read?
Brushing the treetops, the engines
Silently running, stalled toward
The twinkling boughs of the apple orchard.
Only the hiss of escaping pressure
And the small fires
Crackle with the pull
Of nightingales
Taunting the dawn,
Laughing among shards of hot
Metal. You are still unaware
Of the dangerous moonlight
Exposing your shadowed spot,
Yet you walk the shore in thought.
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, the Mid-Atlantic Review, Crossing Lines, Comstock Review among others. At 79, he is still emerging. He currently lives in Toronto and his website is: https://painterpoet.weebly.com.
Featured image Apple orchard off Kymin Rd, Monmouth by Colin Park, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
