Editorial Note: The first two of these poems are based on Marianne Szlyk’s dream like take of experiencing Nature before and during the Coronavirus pandemic. The last poem is based on a (cold) summer  dream.

In Which the Stream Disappears

by Marianne Szlyk, previously published by Alien Buddha, online & print, copyright 2020

Last summer reeds and grass smothered the stream
I used to visit in place of books or travel
to peer into murky water and look for turtles
while red-winged blackbirds pierced the air
and landed on branches of long-dead trees.

I could no longer trace the slow stream
buried in green without room for water
or turtles.  An hour away from D.C.,
an hour away from dusk, the heat rose.
Humidity choked me.  I wished
I had gone with friends
to the city of movie theaters.

I tried to imagine the following spring
when the stream would reappear,
its color then matching
the shell of a turtle, the dead reeds
upright on muddy islands
not yet hidden by green.

I could not predict that spring,
the season in which friends
and the city disappeared.

In Which the Stream Reappears

by Marianne Szlyk, copyright 2020

This spring, its sky the gray of cobwebs,
we learn to walk in almost-rain.

Today the stream once dwindled to damp dirt
has returned to bustle through the swamp,

burst over small banks, flood muddy flats, only stopping
where a robin coolly extracts a worm.

This spring, its scent hidden in cold rain and low clouds,
in bright, cemetery flowers, the fear of touch,

we learn to learn from what we can see
again and again and again and again.

Return to Inverness Beach

by Marianne Szlyk, copyright 2020

In dreams I feel hard red
pebbles.  Icy tide slides
in once more over pink
sand, not soft tropical
sand, but ground stone, cold mud
for tourists who visit,
who stroll but do not swim.

No seaweed frills this beach;
no salt floods the air. No
fish or birds decay.  Sun
without heat halts above.
The wind is a cool blur
as my brother and I
splash through numbing water.

Standing barefoot on stones,
we watch for icebergs.  North
of here, they pass gray barns
and grass that blends into
salt air.  Far south of here
they crash into ocean
the color of concrete.

In this dream, one appears.
It may become a rock
or an island.  We may
land there, barefoot, without
any way but waking
to leave.

Bio: Marianne Szlyk’s poems have appeared in: of/with, bird’s thumb, Cactifur, Mad Swirl, Setu, Solidago, Ramingo’s Porch, Bourgeon, Bradlaugh’s Finger, the Loch Raven Review, Epiphanies and Late Realizations of Love, and Resurrection of a Sunflower, an anthology of work responding to Vincent Van Gogh’s art. Her full-length book, On the Other Side of the Window, is now available from Pski’s Porch  http://www.pskisporch.com/?page_id=702 and Amazon. This summer she has revived her blog-zine The Song Is… as a summer-only publication:
http://thesongis.blogspot.com

Categories: Marianne Szlyk poetry, poem by Marianne Szlyk, poem nature, poem pandemic, poems dream like, poetry coronoavirus, surreal poem, visionary poem

Tags: coronavirus poetry, dream poetry, nature poetry, poetry, poetry by Marianne Szlyk, waterways poetry