BETWEEN

At dusk, heaven spends its colors:

still blue high overhead, curved into a smash

of golden where somber hills recede

from river where

a dim languish of red lives barely a moment.

It’s summer, tree –shaggy summer, and green

 as night encroaches

How will we know surely,

sleeping among gorilla-shadows,

Lord God Sun will reappear, even

if Moon Goddess, full of herself is

spilling a new dream over the very air

               and landscape

--between, as we are,

--sentinels of between

though we must sleep,

trusting dreamlife to provide.

--Shirley Powell

Between  oil on canvas   20x20

BRIMMING

Yesterday at dawn, a nest of maple tree branches           

in our backyard were crimson-lit, then

turned  golden                 like

the flowing light in a Bloodgood-Abrams

painting

It’s claimed that as we’re born and

as we die, beginnings start as endings end

with brimming light that for a moment swallows

us as we become

         glowing star strokes

transforming as our sun transforms

backyard trees                 denuded in harsh winter

          but marked for Glory

--Shirley Powell

Warm Haze  oil  40x30