Sound of wheels on the gravel,
the light of early October spreading like honeysuckle
as cornstalks began to fall,
the lavender horizon waved like the drape of a bier
over a close girl changing in age
beneath a seeing lantern.
Hand in hand
we sat on the pale grass,
at dusk the red hawk curved behind the line of trees
taking a squirrel
to the eave of the house
dripping like a willow.
Thumb and finger separate the paper tape
of cedar sticks and sandalwood to burn for fragrance
I doubt will surround
nighttime fluid as the black creek painted stones,
then we will follow the cricket vibrations to sleep
becoming soon the fallow of this ground.
-by John Swain
John Swain lives in Louisville, Kentucky, USA. Red Paint Hill published his first collection, Ring the Sycamore Sky.
Painting Courtesy: Suren Voskanyan
Suren Voskanyan was born in Yerevan, Armenia in 1960. He studied the techniques & styles of the masters of impressionism and post impressionism in Hermitage Museum, Leningrad. He is a member of Realistic Artists Union in Armenia. He did exhibitions all over the world. His works can be found in Modern Art Museum of Yerevan, Armenia and OAC Spiritual Modern Art Museum of Crete, Greece.
