Summer 2023: 42, Riverkeeper (*An Elegy), J. Mark Cooney

On the bluff’s shoulder,
father’s Buddha glows of hyacinth.
An impish grin fills his cheeks;
108 prayer beads—wrapped plaits
of silver—wreathe his chest.
Each sphere absorbs an otherworld: endless
curls of bough, blade, and atmosphere;
glances of the haunted understory.
I stutter down the pine bank and wade
into the stream’s coursing shadow.
A moth quivers on an eddy’s lip,
disappears into a trout’s rise.
An osprey cuts the lifting mist—takes.
I rake the void’s faint rings,
freeing their grip on time and distance.
Above me, silver beads
hold 108 flying ospreys;
prayers flutter on confetti wings.

—

*According to the Cambridge Dictionary, an elegy is a sad poem or song, especially remembering someone who has died or something in the past.