Alan Pearson Poetry

I have often stood at early mornings
on the jetty where rusty nails protrude
through planks gnarled by twenty years
of summer sun - then stared, entrances,
at shallow water sandbars
overlaid with restless nets of sunlight.

Here is the place where father and son
in many summers past
pulled to life a coughing engine
and made their way
to One Tree Island, half across the lake.

Here ghosts of fishermen long gone
linger near this place
where shadowed minnows
shudder at a footfall;
where scimitar flight of swifts
slice at midge-filled air.

This is the place for me...
here at the shore where dandelions
- frayed medallions of sunlight -
scatter abundance among pale clover
and cool chicory

Some nights, when I'm far away
among city towers that menace,
I think about this corner of the lake
where raccoons lurk,
and remember clouds that part
to let moonlight spill and blanch
across a row of silver birch
where night birds in their hidden places
let go their repetitious chords.


	Old Jetty




	I have often stood at early mornings on the jetty where rusty nails protrude through planks gnarled by twenty years of summer sun - then stared, entrances, at shallow water sandbars overlaid with restless nets of sunlight. Here is the place where father and son in many summers past pulled to life a coughing engine and made their way to One Tree Island, half across the lake. Here ghosts of fishermen long gone linger near this place where shadowed minnows shudder at a footfall; where scimitar flight of swifts slice at midge-filled air. This is the place for me... here at the shore where dandelions - frayed medallions of sunlight - scatter abundance among pale clover and cool chicory Some nights, when I'm far away among city towers that menace, I think about this corner of the lake where raccoons lurk, and remember clouds that part to let moonlight spill and blanch across a row of silver birch where night birds in their hidden places let go their repetitious chords.