Poem "Illustrious for Brief Moments"

“Winter Garden”
Original Photo © Renee Podunovich, 2023

Illustrious for Brief Moments

Today is another chance

            to be fully alive,

            present in the What

            Is —                the light and dark embodied,

                                    the movement from dreaming

                                    to waking dreams — all of it

the same mysterious fabric. 

Sunrise — Juncos feast at the feeder

cheerful in the chill white,

light lands on feathers and drifts,

                                    on me at my writing desk,

                                    on you, somewhere —

Webs of distance

I won’t write about longing ever again.

I have already wandered that endless path,

followed it to the distant most planets.                           

I am here, not there, not anywhere else.

I exist inside the silk lining

            of pockets of snow, softly

elevating me and the winter birds

far far from our summer selves,

                                    stillness, seeds and scattered

words become 

dream food.

We are held aloft — illustrious — for brief moments

before our feet sink through

to the solid, frozen earth,

dark matter, the underworld

that will once again

birth us at

sunrise —

Renee Podunovich, from the chapbook “Illustrious for Brief Moments” (Finishing Line Press, 2021)