raining carnations

A pastoral poem of seasonal endings and beginnings to mark this new year. January often feels like a time of stasis rather than a fresh start, so hopefully this poem is a reminder that we are still in motion rather than frozen in some in-between moment. An earlier version first appeared in the anthology Snow Softly Falling: Holiday Stories from Prince Edward Island (Acorn Press, 2015). This incarnation (pun intended) is the last poem in the revised edition of my collection Swinging Between Water and Stone (Galleon Books, 2025).

raining carnations

a heart-jump of wings
skipping across this salt river
beating the silvered calm into white splinters
then a wake fanning toward primordial shorelines

at rest the beak head and gangly neck
form a question mark punctuating existence
leaves flaming red and gold curl into brown failed poems
clinging desperately to gnarled limbs

then into brittle shells eddying around trunk and root
rattling their last like a badly-kept secret
salt water hardens an iced-over cataract
a blind gaze mocking grey emptiness above

before carnations rain their slow-motion magic realism
like crystalized tears blooming white
blessing the nothingness of our lives atop some frozen
cliff (overlooking the marriage of two tides)

a sole pine raises its silver-needled menorah
star-lit with the oil of human mindfulness
giving meaning to a finite miracle
and an infinite number of interpretations

shadows of constellations dot the blue blanketed rooftops
inside these wing-haunted midnights
smoking chimneys like breaths in repose
until sunrise brings a crow-gathering of string and twigs

for the gifts of transcendence
wreaths of nuts and dried berries halo all ecumenical doors
a cracking thaw summons back the heron’s clumsy wingspan
prehistoric lineage among the spring snowflakes

pushing through mud
a memory of raining carnations reflected in black water
where a split in the ice
grins knowingly

© raining carnations by Steven Mayoff 2014

Steven Mayoff is a Canadian novelist, poet and lyricist. His web site is www.stevenmayoff.ca

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