Here twilight blue skies ripple into
Chemical clouds a deep smoggy red
And underneath the pavement of the highways the
Spinning soils tumble into
The North Saskatchewan’s ice floes,
Chisel away its banks,
Inching it closer to all the fluorescent-lit
High-rises on the northern shore.
Mechanical motorized Edmonton rumbles
By, the No. 4 interior dimly lit
Against the falling of night that
Whines a B natural, one half step above
Nature’s normal hum of green and loam.
The lone passenger opens his vintage Fahrenheit 451
Book, the temperature burns
On the bus, he unzips himself against the
Heat, pulls the cord, then closes it, and puts it
Back into his satchel, his requested stop nearing.
He steps off, patent leather
Shoes crunch into the graying spring ice,
And feels the whirring electric wind of
Streetlights and sidewalks and speeding cars
Down roadways and rivers of melt that
Run down the ridges of time
And space, and the sky up above
A cacophony of peeking stars
And clouds and smog,
And hides, just a silhouette on his Android,
Clutching his satchel with his book all bundled up and
His parka zipped to his neck and his mittens on
Against the slow coming of spring
Inside the plexiglas bus stop with blue trim. Over
His head the twilight blue sky sits for a moment
And then slips away unnoticed into a deep
Deep black moonless night.
On the opposite horizon, moments before,
The sun sank down a delicate pink and orange,
Burning up the last pieces of daylight that smelled
Of motor exhaust and too many LED screens.
I stepped into a yellow streetlamp buzzing away
Patches of blue-gray night,
The first sweet whispers of spring rippled through my senses,
Replacing the throbbing in my head
With green and dampness, and my black boots
Splashed away brown and sooty snow
And beneath the bare and towering
Oak trees and an ever-darkening sky
I zipped down my jacket,
Removed my hood, let the
Resonance of the night breeze
Catch my crumpled hair.
jacalyn denhaan 