Chaplet #7 - Disappearing Darkness by Martin Willitts Jr.

Disappearing Darkness

by Martin Willitts Jr.

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Table of Contents: 


1. In Winter
2. Hands Stirring
3. Path in the Woods
4. Sudden Rain
5. Lesson
6. Before You Go
7. October
8. Geese
9. September
10. Maples

Cover photo: ABSFreepic.com
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In Winter 

I had to see what made a noise, ping-crunch. 

It was icicles breaking free
from spruce needles
shattering on blackened
limestone
where the back roads ended abruptly.




Hands Stirring 

When my hands are never sure what to do,
they circle.

There is a wind trying to learn
all there is in the world.

My hands stir words of seasons, endlessly.
There is stillness that never happens.

If I turn up the volume of silence,
what will you hear?




Path in the Woods 

Close up, this path seems to go nowhere
but I followed it to its illogical conclusion.
I wanted to know if it went anywhere
and when it didn’t I was not surprised.
But wherever I went, it took me there.




Sudden Rain 

                          rain
  wavering on the windshield


                         heavy pellets
of crystals
                         careening off the car hood

             portions
                                      clanging
                                      into disappearing darkness

light
silhouetting                   on wet black road surfaces




Lesson 

when a flower is dying
it drops petals
loss and regret
one petal then
another 

each time
the flower leaves
revealing the truth of life and death 

we all die
we are all forgotten




Before You Go 

Notice this light
filling in the empty spaces.

Notice the tracks in fresh snow.
They are not human, but
they are heading towards home.

Notice, the quiet has stopped here,
facing the cloudless sky,
simple as a room without furniture.

Notice: no one answers when called.

Experiences like this happen
without even trying, and then,
night wakes up, opens a door,
trying to catch up with those tracks
before they disappear into new snow,
before the woods enter into us.




October 

in ancient October light
far into the fields
turning rustic-red
our path is worn thin




Geese 

Somewhere, geese are plunging into faraway lakes,
skidding over water, hiding in brush, waiting
for that deep, connective-calling to begin —
when memory is glowing white and hard, fierce,
straining at their wings.




September 

Over earth’s shoulder,
the sun had not come
like a promise
of extending a helping hand.

September slows everywhere down to a grind.




Maples 

In autumn fields,
there is a graveyard of maples.

Not even dark places are safe.


copyright 2017, Martin Willitts Jr.
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About the Author

Martin Willitts Jr won the 2014 Dylan Thomas International Poetry Contest; Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, June 2015, Editor’s Choice; Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, Artist’s Choice, November 2016, and a Central New York Individual Artist Award for "Poetry On The Bus".