Phantom

I sleep late, then scour the dry woods, searching for answers....

Photo by Ayako on Unsplash

Phantom

I sleep late
     then scour the dry woods 
          searching for answers
     for redemption as though
          I were looking for
               a lost doorway to
                    another world
watching the heat drain 
     into the electric sky
          with collective unspoken prayers
               from the valley, 
                    the riverside,
     their despondence rushing by me
          on dusky stiff-feathered wings

     and the evening wind comes
           stealing through 
                staining the pines a
                   ghostly blue 

I feel myself opening
     into the cooling air
           I'm a shadowy museum
      a corridor stretching back
          through a half century 
               of seeking
a phantom of stories
     stumbling across a
            monochrome mountainside

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You can read more of Sean’s poetry on Arise !
Check it out here:

And discover his cowboy poetry on Bite the Bullet, here:

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Sean Downing, poet, musician, teaches high school English and Theater Arts in Pagosa Springs, Colorado. He can often be found in his woodshop, coaxing music from odd scraps of junk, or haunting the trout streams around southwest Colorado. If you see him, don’t tell anyone: they’re probably looking to get an honest day’s work out of him.

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