The Literary Review
Morning Star
We’re on the same train,
committed to unclogging gridlock,
searching for balance and pure air.
A mere thread divides arrival and retreat;
passion and loathing; triumph and decay.
Venus lights the way at dawn,
where we wield rods of laurel.
Cries from a murder of crows stifled,
trees glow golden red once more.
Flamingoes return to wading.
Starfish grow new arms.
Brainy sperm whales give birth.
Humans resume the voyage to Eden.
- Amy Barone
Little Hearts
As the Earth warms, birds are flying North to nest.
In a cluster of islands, far from man, brown pelicans
find refuge in Chesapeake Bay’s Tangier Sound come spring.
They join oystercatchers and herons in still marshes
and waterways, where they wildly flap their necks
to stay cool and loudly dive for food.
White necked and blonde, chicks emerge
with fluffy fur that darkens when breeding.
And when the babes tuck back wings,
a perfect brown heart, a tattoo
from Mother Nature, is revealed.
- Amy Barone
Novemberscape
Long slender white trunks seduce.
Lifeless leaves carpet parks and streets.
A spotlight of white rays invites.
The horizon rims a blue-gray sky.
Wrapped in blustery bliss,
I toast my roots at a park,
a gravesite, Happy Hour.
Boot the blues to the cosmos.
- Amy Barone
A Stranger’s Smile
It followed me out a store one day,
still haunts with its starkness and force.
Another lifted my spirits as I waited
on a train platform. The bearer wore
a khaki suit and a straw hat trimmed in blue.
The exchange is a fragrant bouquet, soul food,
a needed breeze, answered prayers.
Shellshocked in a safe way—I’m touched
by a presence that transcends past and future.
In lockstep with wonder, I’m energized,
changed by a sudden simple gift.
- Amy Barone
Revisit-or
Altered states vacillate.
They lift me from longing
that sets in when he returns.
No high alerts to warn of his arrival.
Ensuing panic proves hard to shake,
but pampering takes shape in myriad forms.
Touch and sound work best.
Painting mindscapes aids,
as grief walks in on tiptoes.
- Amy Barone
