by John Muro
I suppose it was as good a time as any
to ask for pardon from all living things
since the world had suddenly been struck
dumb and stood mistily before me, its
shining spent, void of sound and motion
except for the soft knocking of wooden
oars against the rusted locks of an empty
boat and the coastline gradually receded,
falling to a godforsaken silence, and I
tried to recall the alien hours of early
morning suffused with a changing
light that glazed the crest of the waves
and the frayed tree-line’s red and yellow
rupture, before the day, without form or
texture or even the semblance of a horizon,
insisted, with its grey, flinted weight,
on pushing morning aside only to witness
its reemergence with the muffled applause
of dry thunder, a blue spill of sky and
the seasonal scents of moist, high-piled
leaves, balsam fir and smoky brine.
John Muro has authored two volumes of poems—In the Lilac Hour and Pastoral Suite—in 2020 and 2022, respectively. His third volume, A Bountiful Silence, will be published this fall. Since the publication of his first book, John has been thrice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, twice nominated for the Best of the Net and he has received several commendations for his work, including a 2023 Grantchester Award. John’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in such journals as Acumen, Belfast Review, Grey Sparrow, Sky Island, the Valparaiso Review and elsewhere.
Emerge Literary Journal 