Alan Steele - One Poem

Bottomland

Our Trinity reached its banks today. Pooled,
First time in recent member, begging
My spirit away from my menial tasks,
A haze instilled to the afternoon, thus
Making three o’clock more like seven; touched
The depth where whiskey turns green umber then back.
Ripples stir perch to life, dancing beneath
A pair of mallards intent on their sprint,
Wings a whisper from twigs and Johnson grass
Afloat.  White discard lies as if anchored,
Tiny pillars of pulp brace water high,
Ever as preventing structural fail
From weight of the flock’s straggler members, each
Individual v in the flying
Zigzag across smooth amber glass surface, face
Buried deep in the ripples.  There, again,
Goes the two-some, post reincarnation
Of some girl’s childhood you, searching for
A home to call own in  river stand in
Ocean foam, artificial along the
Bank—homage, final Mexican Gulf home—
Nature stops well short with a mini train
Above the steep fall from grass to murk, a
Separation of two legs from none, and
To look through myself floating atop
Fluid depths, lying on those pillars, this
Other me among white caps wanting flight.
Desire to float, in continue my dry
Path to home, to my own blue, Gulf Delta.



Alan Steele holds degree in English and Law.  He lives in Burleson, Texas, just outside of Fort
Worth with his and kids.  Alan has been previously published in Aries, Apropos, Poetic License,
BL Poet, Verse Unto Us, New Mirage Quarterly, and Thumbprint.