2 December 2003 | Vol. 3, No. 4
No Pure Pastoral
Nothing is something. The sky diminishing during earth's first tilt toward fall. In the orchard, our red blanket spreads out over the long green grass, sun fills up the rest of the glass of Pinot Blanc from Alsace. The wine jolts memories of Colmar, Strasbourg, Paris. We're here in the States where they won't issue my driver's license until I pay the tax on my x-wife's car, no longer in existence, making this no pure pastoral. In fact, the tax office's lunch hour forces us out here in anger. Peace reigns, momentarily. Miniature apples remain on nearby trees. I get up to stretch, when at the far end of the field a hawk lifts off the ground, & I turn signaling her to keep an eye out. Standing, motioning, it soars less than a shadow's length away just behind me, & she witnesses it veer up vertically, barely grazing my suddenly stunning aura.
About the author:
Robert Gibbons is the author of three full-length books of prose poems. New work is online in Istanbul Literature Review and Jacket, and is forthcoming in Ars Interpres (Sweden) and Wheelhouse. He is Poetry and Fiction Editor of Janus Head.
For further reading:
See the complete list of work by Robert Gibbons at 42opus. Browse the contents of 42opus Vol. 3, No. 4, where "No Pure Pastoral" ran on December 2, 2003. List other work with these same labels: poetry, prose poem.
