John Muro

Giving Way

Wind’s abated and gone bird-dog
still while curtains shudder back
to stillness and even a gunslinger
sparrow has abandoned its song
as if certain passages were in need
of revision while the morning tides,
reduced to murmur, slink away in
slow retreat and I’m wondering
what else heaven might offer
when bands of sunlight ease past
the clouds like plaster oozing
from behind long strips of lath
only to dissolve in a harlequin
display across the tidal flats
as leaves of fevered red and
fire-light yellow drift down
and settle among the coastal
grasses or cling like wilted
blossoms to the barbed stems
of shoreline roses and I stand,
with fewer days before me,
dumbfounded by the right-
well flare and splendor of this
hour even as autumn lessens,
though I cannot fathom why
time and a nearly healed soul –
one weightless and the other
weighing only a few grams –
should prod me from behind
and urge me to press on.

A resident of Connecticut and a lover of all things chocolate, John Muro has authored two volumes of poems – In the Lilac Hour and Pastoral Suite – in 2020 and 2022, respectively. He has been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize, a Best of the Net Award and, in 2023, he was a Grantchester Award recipient. John’s work has appeared in numerous journals, including Acumen, Barnstorm, Delmarva, River Heron, Sky Island, the Valparaiso Review and Winged Penny.