By: Greg Wood

Disappearing in God

if you sense
a certain shine
in the shadows
of the trees,

you may be
a sufi
lightly
spinning
across the
chessboard
mirror of
earth
and sky.

or a sage
immersed in
windswept presence:
the beginning
of what was
and still
is

oneness
of being

the
shine in
the shadows
of the trees.

Finding Chris

It is said a river meanders
before it flows
through a
youthful soul.

We were all
of ten years old,
unaware of moonlight
tickling the buttons of

our pajamas;
our breathing
heavy in the
warm humid air.

Was it the
fidgeting
of your limbs
and toes, the soft
winds of your
chatter,
or the
feeling
from lying
right beside you.

I knew the night would be long and difficult.

There was little
I could do but sleep.

Rain was pattering
on the tin roof
when I awakened,
inside a body
decades older.

You, in a pair of
old jeans and a t-shirt,
preparing to slip
through the front door.

No umbrella, no poncho, no galoshes.

You knew there was no escaping the rain,
never.

You ran in it
and through it
and into it as if
it were the arms
of your mother.

How could you know
I was right behind you
measuring your every
footstep.

How could you know
through
endless rains,
decades passed

I had always
been your spirit brother
of the downpour;
you had always been
my river

My Everything.

parting train to memphis

if you
whisper
to the rain
it will splinter
into tiny
drops
and sizzle
on your lips
like a lover you
once crossed on
a parting train to
memphis.

you dreamed of her
as drifting winds
sent you due west
toward the
petroglyphs
of sonora.

oh, the
etchings
in your mind
would grow
for years and years
before they crumbled
in an instant ‘neath
powdered white
imprints of
an early
morning
sun.

a petroglyph is an ancient rock carving. the imprints are often clear, with stark contrast between the white imprint and dark backdrop of the rock.

when the night is still (from wadi rum)

where will you be
when the night is still,
soon cloaked
in the bloom
of descending cloud,

will you rise
with the wind
of your soul

its fiercest wish

or hush
the voice
of all that
speaks
within.

only in dreams

i profess i’m not in love
with you except for on
those evenings when
i must be falling for
your heart,
the way it drums
to the flow of rivers,
to streams
of glittering
nightfall,
when pearls
of dreams glow
like blue moons
descending upon
porch-lit hills, when
hibiscus blooms
lean toward apple
trees as if to spill
at once some-
thing delicious
and divine.

then
i’m sure
i am
the vine
winding its
way towards
the
waterfall
of us, spilling
into
everything
new.

though
I assure you
I profess I’m
not in love
with you.

What Every Mississippi Woman Knows

The nude lipsticks in Jo’s handbag
meander through a thicket of eyeliners
and perfumes, looking for an exit ramp,
just as the leather of the eastern
wall suddenly gives way.

Tubes begin tumbling
across the checkered
linoleum floor of the kitchen.

Jo is in the other room,
oblivious to the situation.
She’s watching a crime flick
about a Mississippi
man on the loose.

A dozen cops
all chasing a
wild goose.

Jo imagines the fugitive is her ex husband,
wondering how in the world did she ever
let him slip away.

‘Let him go, jo. let him go.’
Jo insists.

Meanwhile the lipsticks
fly everywhere
across her linoleum floor
like red roosters on the loose.

But rest assured there’s no escaping
their return to that Texas leather purse.

Never.

###

Greg Wood is a southern cosmopolitan writer with roots in Virginia and connections to Alabama and Amman, Jordan. He regularly publishes poems in Dissident Voice and was recently featured in Dodging the Rain. Greg is the founder of Skylight, a creative arts outreach program that has touched the lives of many individuals across the United States.