Marcia F. Brown

Freeze Frame

Camera, tripod, satchel of gear
shouldered under dry branches,
you are headed out to take a picture
of the loon we think
will winter over on the salt pond.

In the upstairs window, pen in hand,
I am framing this picture of you,
intent on your mission: green shirt,
gray vest in the mottled light
of Indian summer.

Beloved, you walk as much with this world
as the deer. How do I say
how the hay-gold grasses
bend to you? How the split rails
draw you to their vanishing point

beyond which, a bird - wild
and ancient - sends up
its hollow, fluted cry,
and how for one moment, I long
to know a distant song,

something I can sing
to hold you there.




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