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Thursday, January 01, 2015

THE EYE OF EARTH

by Martin Elster



Image source: NotThatKindofGirl



The eye of Earth peers, spellbound, through a chink
in melting pond ice, trying not to blink
into the blue enveloping its gaze.
It’s never seen the sun before, whose rays
scatter through the atmosphere, a link

to outer space, where constellations wink
their secrets. Billows take a healthy drink
of water vapor, amble past, amaze
    the eye of Earth.

Its habitat now teeters on the brink.
Though trees have bared their limbs, grooves black as ink
crisscross the leaf-strewn liquefying glaze,  
whose softening increases with the days.
The gravity of this, though, cannot sink
    the eye of Earth.


Martin Elster, author of There’s a Dog in the Heavens!, is also a composer and serves as percussionist for the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. His poems have appeared in such journals as Astropoetica, The Flea, The Martian Wave, The Rotary Dial, and in the anthologies Taking Turns: Sonnets from Eratosphere, The 2012 Rhysling Anthology, and New Sun Rising: Stories for Japan. Martin’s poem, “Walking With the Birds and the Bones Through Fairview Cemetery” received first prize in the Thomas Gray Anniversary Poetry Competition 2014.