MISCARRIAGE

I decided to make for the spring

On top of the Rockies.

I left at dawn.

The Mountain was a blueprint

On a backdrop of umber

Perforated from afar

By the hues of the sun.

At thirty odd miles of walk

I looked up,

There was the peak

At an acute angle of head raising

Chirping, calling, beckoning:

“Come over, O, my little Candid,

I got manna for you,

Unseen by human eye,

And distilled extractions

Brewing for generations.

I got too a crystal cap,

An observatory of the heretofore

And a stream to the hereafter.”

But the net was hurled,

Fog outraced me from aback and around;

I couldn’t see the way forward,

And prosaic voices drew me back.

Ali H. Raddaoui