Papyrus Fragments

after the long push up the shore, I’d lie back and slowly float over half-sunken logs through lily pads straight to the tree and its empty hole. One afternoon I heard hooting there, but it was just a fooling wind. Our last summer at the lake I paddled to all my best places. The bank of wild blueberries, the watery field of pickerelweed where bears fished and dragonflies rode my oars, the steep cliffs where eagles taught their young to fly, and last of all, the tree. I entered the bay in a soft rain, paddled quickly to the far shore, and there in the hole in the tree– no owl, but a nest. And nearby, a rustle, a flash of wing, something waiting for me to leave, waiting for what would be born. ß Diane Vreuls Author biography Diane Vreuls has published a novel, a book of poems, a collection of short stories, and a children’s book, as well as work in such magazines as Commonweal, the Paris Review, and The New Yorker. After Eden, a new collection of poems, was published by Pinyon Press in the fall of 2015. Papyrus Fragments They move, these bitten isles, between voids time has scribed. Here lie two tales at once. One in shards, like wings between two panes, lessons love. This frail colony of words 106 Christianity & Literature 65(1) fills the gaps with suppositions, contriving dim stars and dark matter from the lights we do see. Behold how among bright peaks we loiter lines, with shapes divining the monster and its hero, the maiden’s curse and the son’s return. We cannot bear to leave alone the erasures mind abhors, but in those tides the silent truths rehearse our intimate closure. Beware the ark of dream. Image stars alone, unpaired by word or scheme. ß Ricardo Pau-Llosa Author biography Ricardo Pau-Llosa has published seven books of poetry—the last one titled Man, in 2014. His last five books are from Carnegie Mellon U Press. His work has appeared in American Poetry Review, december, The Fiddlehead, PN Review, Poetry, Stand, among many other journals. He is also a widely published art critic and a curator. Poetry 107 ...