Light fragments the creek. Mayflies dance in new warmth and the shifting canopy is rife with call and response across octaves. Staccato, trills, decomposed chords. Bullfinch, sparrow, thrush. So many things reach out. The sun spot-lights them in turn while viscous air exudes communication from alder and ash, bluebells, lilac, honeysuckle. All are eager to spread their truth like teenagers without shirts that glow nearby, impatient to remove barriers and address the world, despite lacking words. The ground grows confident, emergent. No longer mud-slicked from months of rain -you never could quite get your footing- it is now firm, so you can change direction, launch yourself. Later it will calcify, crack from sun, but today the moisture is still rising, making everything supple. So you decide things, you make brave plans. This grand communion is like the remembered pull of a dance floor, but I don’t dance anymore. All I can do is write.
Edward Lees is an American who lives in London. During the day he works to help the environment and in the evenings he writes poetry. His works have been accepted for publication in various journals including Southern Humanities Review, Potomac Review, Moonpark Review, Amethyst Review, and Anthropocene Poetry Journal. He has been nominated for Best of the Net.
