Poems by Mike Dillon
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by Mike Dillon
From Canary Spring 2023
Mike lives in a small town on Puget Sound within view of the Olympic and Cascade mountain ranges and a few miles from Chief Seattle's grave.
“Keep on this path,” the stranger said.
“There’s a grove of white hawthorn straight ahead.
It’s like a thicket of waterfalls.”
I thanked the man. And glanced at the sunlit path
into the woods. And glanced at my watch.
And turned back.
Next May, I thought. Or the May after that.
As the other path into whatever years are left
flickered with fitful light.
© Mike Dillon
Goldeneye
by Mike Dillon
From Canary Spring 2018
Ever tuxedoed in black and white
you return when October’s flame
dwindles down toward November’s ash
to paddle around in debonair calm
with no particular place to be, it seems.
You’re with us when we light candles
to earth’s longest night.
You’re with us during the slow hike
through gunmetal gray all the way
to the angelic-headed daffodils.
And sudden sun. And clouds white as lambs.
Pardon my inattention while you sift north.
One day the bay is blue and empty.
One day I realize it is again a little too late
for another of life’s farewells.
© Mike Dillon
In Mid-January
by Mike Dillon
It was late afternoon
when the darkening road
led us into the forest.
I kept the headlights on bright
down the long corridor
of emptiness
where a doe drifted
out of a wall of firs
with the clarity of a dream
and froze. Deeper in, an owl
sailed heavily through our headlights
like a shot across our bow
from one dark wall to the other.
On we flared in silence,
my wife and I. Watchful,
until we emerged from the trees
and saw pale rush light
dwindling beyond crow-black hills
and the last pewter gleam
upon a river’s slow muscles
before its dark turn.
© Mike Dillon
Three Hours in the Morning
by Mike Dillon
From Canary Spring 2023
One hour held a green hill
untouched by cloud shadow
while the silver vocables
of swelled creek
rushed past
the green silence
of fiddleheads.
One held a fenced field
where a chestnut foal
chased a white cloud.
I stopped walking to watch.
And so the foal walked towards me
until it was stopped.
Suddenly fenced.
One held the tranced rhythm
of small waves at slack tide.
And the dream inside the washing,
washing of the silent stones.
Until a clack! woke me
from a hovering gull’s
dropped clam.
© Mike Dillon