Vivian Eyre
Of Offerings Where shoal grass meets sand, two chairs—greenplastic, high-backed—belonging to no one. When I sit my spine recalls its wings,a time when chairs could be wooden rafts or lifeboats. Is this my childhood bounding out of the sea?No. A red, wild-haired dog. A runaway. Hello friend. I tuck words into the envelope of his ear.The dog eats the lucky biscuit in my pocket. I say, lucky, because I make my luck, carry offerings to coax affection. Good boy, I say. The dog’s boy is soon beside us, panting from his long run up the beach. Odin.You’ll never learn—he half-cries as his knees kiss sand. It seems that Odin—not the boy—knows I’m there.His eyes barely lift above the dog collar. What is youth—all impulse to name a dog after a god,to want god to sit beside us, so blood-close, only to loosen the grip on the tether?I stare at the crest of waves unbroken. The boy’s unwavering gaze is on Odin’s feathery tail,the beauty part, fanning joy onto my shin.
While Packing Boxes with Muses When the tarred tent of night begins to fall,two starlings flush from the turtle-thick mud.Murmuring shushes the wind. Two birds,not a swarm, in a tilting line of flight the dart & urgent wings like angels beseeching:Do not look behind. Lest be swept away.The light from across the field, pink darkensto blue, rising like a slap to bring me back to this room of leave-taking.From this box, I read an unmailed letter—I walk on siltstone & gneiss, sunflower fields,the footpath pitched with weeds. . . A daughter holds a letter, unsent. The receiver,long gone. Now I find you across the pit-road,that draft horse coated in sorrel gloss,grazing at the edge of mist. When I look back to the window, the dayis fast rising. A metallic sheen of wingssweeps the sky as the mind dipsits oars beyond daylight.
Vivian Eyre is a New York-based poet, and the author of the poetry chapbook, To the Sound (Finishing Line Press). Her poems have been published in literary journals such as Quiddity, Bellingham Review, Asheville Poetry Review, Permafrost, Spoon River Poetry Review as well as translated in Italian. She was a finalist for the Dorothy Daniels Award, and a semi-finalist for Calyx’s Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize. A former judge of the North Fork’s annual student Poetry for Peace Project, Vivan leads poetry workshops in recreation centers, libraries and museums. She serves as the guest curator for the Southold Historical Society’s Whale House, and rescue volunteer for cold stun sea turtles on the shores of Long Island.
While Packing Boxes with Muses When the tarred tent of night begins to fall,two starlings flush from the turtle-thick mud.Murmuring shushes the wind. Two birds,not a swarm, in a tilting line of flight the dart & urgent wings like angels beseeching:Do not look behind. Lest be swept away.The light from across the field, pink darkensto blue, rising like a slap to bring me back to this room of leave-taking.From this box, I read an unmailed letter—I walk on siltstone & gneiss, sunflower fields,the footpath pitched with weeds. . . A daughter holds a letter, unsent. The receiver,long gone. Now I find you across the pit-road,that draft horse coated in sorrel gloss,grazing at the edge of mist. When I look back to the window, the dayis fast rising. A metallic sheen of wingssweeps the sky as the mind dipsits oars beyond daylight.
Vivian Eyre is a New York-based poet, and the author of the poetry chapbook, To the Sound (Finishing Line Press). Her poems have been published in literary journals such as Quiddity, Bellingham Review, Asheville Poetry Review, Permafrost, Spoon River Poetry Review as well as translated in Italian. She was a finalist for the Dorothy Daniels Award, and a semi-finalist for Calyx’s Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize. A former judge of the North Fork’s annual student Poetry for Peace Project, Vivan leads poetry workshops in recreation centers, libraries and museums. She serves as the guest curator for the Southold Historical Society’s Whale House, and rescue volunteer for cold stun sea turtles on the shores of Long Island.