Its Sudden Presence

Its Sudden Presence

She saw first its gold-flashed eyes

on-off…on-off…there before her

its mottled brownness grounded

where two spruces intertwined.

Its sudden presence shifted 

in-out…in-out…of place

for when it blinked  it disappeared…

instants of camouflage

 

She matched its stillness…

two arrested beings

in wilderness surround.

It hissed…arched owlet wings.

“Be on about your destiny

and then leave mine to me.”

 

Later, beside her campfire

she considered the occurrence…

the hissing and arched wings…

and her interpretation 

of its fear and its defiance

while owls hooted in the pines 

and wolves howled on the ridges

fulfilling destiny.

 

Bonnie Marshall

 

 

 

 

 

 

Schools of Thoughts

Schools of Thoughts

Within the Cayman reef
of her imagination
silver-flash poem words
dart from lifelessness to risk…
while shafts of inspiration
spear through variations
in the drowning blue.

White-tipped undulations
of circling indecision
shadow from the surface…
so that phrases switch direction…
then tides of her intention
pulse new shades of meaning
to swirling schools of thoughts.
 
Bonnie Marshall