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sunset

SUN SETTING ON A WINTER’S DAY

By David SelzerFebruary 25, 20211 Comment1 min read1.7K views

Streaks of greyish cloud above the lovat hills

on the far shore attenuate the sunset

with striations of orange and yellow.

For a moment clouds part, and the sun

radiates a shearing silver like some

Turner landscape, or Wagnerian

allegory. And, as if on cue,

with a suddenness that shocks, amazes,

from the hidden lagoons amongst the reeds,

multiple flocks of geese rise calling, flying

towards the river’s mouth, fluttering shadows

receding into dark.

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By David Selzer

AND WITH EVERY BREATH

By David SelzerJanuary 28, 20211 Comment1 min read1.4K views

Already what little sunlight there has been

each day of the new year dies a little

later in the west. Today the layers

of pale orange and gold seem to stretch

like a canopy far into the Welsh hills,

over the mountains, and the sea beyond,

as if hope were only a journey away.

Meanwhile the numbers of the sick rise

everywhere like a temperature gauge –

and those of us spared thus far, through luck

or circumspection, must make the prosaic

precious: a flurry of snow, a child’s mitten

placed on a wall, a wood pigeon calling

on a chimney stack. And with every breath

a minding of the dead.

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By David Selzer

HESPERIDES

By David SelzerAugust 30, 20182 Comments1 min read1.8K views

As goldfinches begin to sing and sparrows

chirp in polyphony, and swallows,

martins, swifts hunt with grace, the palette

of attenuated gold, amber, rose

is layered along the sea’s horizon

and the sun becomes a perfect disk

in the filtering, vermilion haze.

Anonymous con trails criss-cross the compass.

A lone swimmer crawls across the bay.

The evening star, sudden as a lamp, glints

in the afterglow. A wispy rain cloud forms

and drifts away like smoke. Somewhere a peacock calls

then, elsewhere, a donkey brays – ridiculous

and sublime, like figures in a masque.

A fishing boat, its stern light lit, leaves harbour

to anchor in the shelving deep and cast its nets.

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By David Selzer

SUBURBIA

By David SelzerOctober 29, 20132 Comments1 min read1.6K views

Along the avenue of shorn maples,

leaded lights are discreet – distantly,

the cathedral darkens in a rose sunset.

A piano lesson begins, as cars turn

into drives and a door opens broadcasting

the six o’clock news. At an upstairs

window, a woman holds a baby, sees

nothing in the crepuscular room, hears

only the snuffle of breath on her neck,

the small heart’s beat, the swaying lullaby –

amid ordinary, pink perspectives

of curbed greenery, herbaceous living

and bells telling the hours.

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By David Selzer