Dark Skies

Painting and Poem by Janet Hamill

Dark Skies


No wind or current.
Carrying a weight through the lower waters

How far they are from paradise.
In the grass at the end of the parking lot
a handful of magi rowing a boat through a neglected passage
of longitude dressed like mendicants.
Fallen from an elevated oasis. Without turbans
of gold or embroidered coats.
Only faded linen replicas of leopard skins

Behind them the eastern night.
The guard dogs at the burial grounds
barking into the empty tombs where the stars of summer
were interred in rows of glass coffins.
Stars from the pale blue wings of a swan
stars to move the rocks and trees with songs.
The dolphin's stars

Now missing from the fresco over the city.
The dipper's silver goblets
overturned where last the supper sat.
A crystal cob-webbed chandelier
in an infirmary of pigments.
Bowls of dust flooded with light
and scraps uneaten

Spots of a thousand eyes.
Dropping like flies. Dropping like flies



Janet Hamill