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Icarus

Pressed against
stone and cement,
I search for a hold.
Ten feet straight up;
on the other side
land rises to meet me
safely at the top.

A mile from here
the granite towers;
rock rises    and leaves
land and concrete below.

There, in a pure time,
when trees and walls
are not enough   I hang
spread eagle   my body taut

my fingers hooked in stone.
The wind stops   the birds
are still   from above
a feather falls: and I know,
my hands chalked white
as wings   I am climbing
granite to the sun.

To Julie London
(d. Oct. 18, 2000)

Seductive
and elusive
as a falling leaf,
your voice is

an autumn breeze,
soft and gentle,
but full of winter

caressing the long limbs
of summer, slipping color
from each rounded shoulder,
tossing, softly, the fall at our feet

until the curtain
descends and
everything ends
too soon
too soon.

Hide and Seek

All that afternoon
we worked at it, carving
our initials in soft
gray bark, the week
that you were born.

The linked letters and crude
heart thickened, becoming
letters among letters, heart
among hearts---a thick scar
raised and dated, part
of the history of trees.

Now in a backyard
filled with trees and children
eyes closed, your blond head
buried in your hands, you
count against our silent
rooted past.
The others hide
curled under bushes and behind
nearby trees.
Barefoot, laughing,
one by one you find your friends
and race them home.

Our heart is home, and in
your game a quick touch
sets you free.

Copyright 2008, Bob Meszaros. © This work is protected under the U.S. copyright laws. It may not be reproduced, reprinted, reused, or altered without the expressed written permission of the author.

Bob Meszaros taught English at Hamden High School in Hamden, Connecticut, for thirty-two years. He retired from teaching high school English in June of 1999. He is now an adjunct professor of freshman composition at Quinnipiac University. His poems have subsequently appeared in The Connecticut Review, Main Street Rag, Tar River Poetry, The Red Wheelbarrow, Concho River Review, and others.