Two Poems by Michael R. Burch

Sunset

for my grandfather, George Edwin Hurt Sr., on the day he departed this life

Between the prophecies of morning
and twilight’s revelations of wonder,
the sky is ripped asunder.

The moon lurks in the clouds,
waiting, as if to plunder
the dusk of its lilac iridescence,

and in the bright-tentacled sunset
we imagine a presence
full of the fury of lost innocence.

What we find within strange whorls of drifting flame,
brief patterns mauling winds deform and maim,
we recognize at once, but cannot name.

“Sunset” first appeared in Contemporary Rhyme.

Man at Sixty

after Donald Justice

Learn to gently close
doors to rooms
you can never reenter.

Rest against the stair rail
as the solid steps
buck and buckle like ships’ decks.

Rediscover in mirrors
your father’s face
once warm with the mystery of lather,
now electrically plucked.

Michael R. Burch‘s poems have been published by hundreds of literary journals, taught in high schools and colleges, translated into 19 languages, incorporated into three plays and four operas, and set to music, from swamp blues to classical, 57 times by 31 composers.