Charles F. Thielman – Ⅲ

Parking Lot View 

 

 

 

 

Blank page waiting as a calico cat

peers below azaleas from beneath

a neighbor’s Chevy, blue hiss of rain

through fir and spruce, avenues emptied

of midnight, lit votives on work-room sill.

 

Winter’s approach governed only by currents,

various inner priests cassock time-sponge shadows

over his pen. Being a recovering Catholic, powerless

over wafers much less sin, o Yes!, he has often enough

 

felt the willow branches of blame slice waves

into a drizzle, spent many pages initialing stumps,

grains of truth camouflaged then twine-bound upriver

from birch as moon glints littered the dark bones of his steps.

 

In an hour, the lot will begin another work-day parade, dreams

of absolution fading below welcome mat headlines as clouds

belly into gale, robes of gust after gust blown rain brushing brow

and palm as the sky flutes its hard grace, the lot pulsing out car, car,

 

Jarrett milking the ivory keys, jazz draping dracaena and coleus,

page like an empty barge launched at twilight, gray dawn

soon to spill crows from trees, his rubble fed fissures

soon to sprout ink blooms, a good line or two

as fin flash and mirage lick his peripheries.