Poetry by

Richard Alan Bunch

 

WHY MOONLIGHT IS

NOT FOR SALE

 

The moon fills the windows and nearly blinds me.
Slowly the hills lay themselves open in a cream-yellow hue.
 
A mellow sky overtakes this choir of crickets and
curves of the evening breeze.
 
This is when poetry may return to the tongue,
tribal chants and drums, recalled as a subliminal clearing of the mind.

 

HERE LIES  POCHAHONTAS
 
Here she lies, a princess whose memory is
As sacred as Oregon’s Mount Mazama,
A cross planted between village and temple,
Preserved as a memory range
Between domains of the Powhatan Confederacy
And her marriage to John Rolfe,
Two hemispheres united in a brief bio
Who united mountains of sun and rain
In a zone of silence descended into these bones.
 
Could she have known how
Her seeding would make her the would-be exile
And the morning glory of the motherland?
 
 
CIRCLES OF RINGS
 
They echo each other
these circles of tones,
forming rings that echo
in the ring of things,
like El Greco,
foretastes of unreasoning toys.
They hover over fields
flushed by human moods,
fireless moons, kisses bearing riddles.
 
They echo one another,
forming frescoes of rings,
circles that mingle umber with joy,
fruit glazed with winter, fates fallen,
scrub oak sunsets, gazes through the easel.
 
Secco echoes echo one another,
forming a ring of circles,
alternate horizons,
much like Boccaccio
raindrop notes,
caves and misty cowslips,
invented laketops,
globes leaning toward countdowns,
tulips of insomnia.

 

 
Richard Alan Bunch's works include Summer Hawk, Wading the Russian River, Night Blooms, and a play The Russian River Returns. Thrice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, his poetry has appeared in River Oak Review, Fugue, Cape Rock, Many Mountains Moving, Oregon Review, Poetry Cornwall, and the Hawai’i Review. His latest poetry collection is Running for DaybreaK.