Robert Carr

I Contemplate a Passing Sky

Everyone is going.
            Ellipses of birds
                        cross a flat grey
                                    green, rumpled paper
                        sky. This isn’t sadness,
            simply movement. 

Autumn spattered skin,
            marbles grinding
in my knees. 

Across the lake
            a dog howls. Wakes
                        of boats
break waves

                                                on dock posts.
            I’m on my back,
float beside a yellowed leaf,
                                    legs wide,
                                                            drifting North.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Robert Carr is the author of Amaranth, published in 2016 by Indolent Books and The Unbuttoned Eye, a full-length 2019 collection from 3: A Taos Press. Among other publications his poetry appears in Crab Orchard Review, Lana Turner Journal, Maine Review, Massachusetts Review and Shenandoah. Selected by the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance, he is the recipient of a 2022 artist residency at Monson Arts. Additional information can be found at robertcarr.org