“Season on the Equator”
by Skip Maselli
2021 Poetry of the Sacred Contest Honorable Mention
Photo Credit: Ibrahim Shabil
One tent peg remained, the last sentry,
plunged in thawing ground,
This one peg watches
the last carnival truck tail lights
disappearing in a column of sadness,
vanishing with a distant sigh. I am writing
opposite to your winter equinox,
it will summer when this message arrives.
In repose by firelight,
juniper needles crushed, scented
under autumn’s sublime weight. Onyx tresses
softening along your shoulders.
Now spring,
those extinguished coals
only smolder.
Love is a black glove
forging gilded arrows,
launched in the bent bow of a sentence
Its taut strings drawn with tension,
couplets released, crossing the sky
To each sleek shaft,
a note is tied.
Seasons have no meaning
on the equator.
There is a certain repose in the garden.
Dusk and dawn dip and rise
about the circadian fulcrum.
The moon in zenith pulls the tides. The heart
is a ship at rest in a sea of motion,
teetering along the seam of time. Steadfast,
the hull, a sturdy curve of devotion,
its meaninglessness, sublime.
Skip Maselli is an American poet and short essayist. He has published two poetry collections, “Twenty-Five Words Toward Truth (#25wtT)” and “A Sparrow Who Ate the Universe.” He is a finalist in the 2021 Thomas Merton Poetry of the Sacred Contest. His work has appeared in Rebel Society Magazine, and other compendiums, including “A Kaleidoscope of Stories.”
