A Gathering Storm
These green days won’t last forever,
hanging their verdant boughs
for us to grasp and climb the watery
sky wanton with wispy clouds.
These green days are too short and silent.
snobbish about their elegance,
sending up shoots of hosta fans bursting
with lavender bells and lilies that
trumpet their satisfaction with the day,
even when they know they’ll fold up
their loveliness at night, hiding the fairies
within from the encroaching darkness.
These days are ephemeral, mercurial,
swapping greens and ivy for gold and
rust as the summer days close their eyes
to sleep through the frosty night.
Even now when all I can see on the
earth that envelops me, is green verdure
blanketed by black-eyed susans who
glimpse the gentle grape hyacinths, I
spy the gray underbelly in the white
puffs, the gathering storm that could
blow away the green world in one gasp.
hanging their verdant boughs
for us to grasp and climb the watery
sky wanton with wispy clouds.
These green days are too short and silent.
snobbish about their elegance,
sending up shoots of hosta fans bursting
with lavender bells and lilies that
trumpet their satisfaction with the day,
even when they know they’ll fold up
their loveliness at night, hiding the fairies
within from the encroaching darkness.
These days are ephemeral, mercurial,
swapping greens and ivy for gold and
rust as the summer days close their eyes
to sleep through the frosty night.
Even now when all I can see on the
earth that envelops me, is green verdure
blanketed by black-eyed susans who
glimpse the gentle grape hyacinths, I
spy the gray underbelly in the white
puffs, the gathering storm that could
blow away the green world in one gasp.
Dégagé
Sliding into Northfield, we park at the Carleton
Arboretum, brown and dry in winter’s sleep.
You unpack our white shepherd and the two
Of you penetrate the woods,
Jack London and his wolf.
I race across the highway to a frozen pond
peopled with ducks and geese, crying to
Each other as they walk the planks of ice.
One silent duck woman with her willowy
neck, places one web in front of the other,
gliding the golden pond like Dorothy Hamill,
dancing her duck dégagé with abandon.
Her audience squawks approval,
as she performs on perfect pointe,
in singular silence.
Arboretum, brown and dry in winter’s sleep.
You unpack our white shepherd and the two
Of you penetrate the woods,
Jack London and his wolf.
I race across the highway to a frozen pond
peopled with ducks and geese, crying to
Each other as they walk the planks of ice.
One silent duck woman with her willowy
neck, places one web in front of the other,
gliding the golden pond like Dorothy Hamill,
dancing her duck dégagé with abandon.
Her audience squawks approval,
as she performs on perfect pointe,
in singular silence.
Kathleen Williams Renk writes fiction, nonfiction, and literary criticism. In November 2020, Cuidono Press published her debut novel, Vindicated: A Novel of Mary Shelley, which won Story Circle Network’s 2021 May Sarton Award in Historical Fiction. In 2023 Bedazzled Ink Publishing published her second novel, an alternate historical fiction, The Rossetti Diaries. Her third historical fiction novel, Women Outside of History, is forthcoming. Williams Renk’s short fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in Iowa City Magazine, Literary Yard, Page and Spine, CC & D Magazine, and the Scarlet Review. In her spare time, Williams Renk plays violin and guitar. She also loves to hike on Colorado’s Front Range where she lives.