Entree DM 143

stabant orantes primi transmittere cursum

tendebantque manus ripae ulterioris amore,

navita sed tristis nune hos nunc accipit illos

ast alios longe submotos arcet harena.

Virgil, Aeneid, Book VI, II, 313-316

- and the dead stood praying to be the first to voyage over,

and reached out their hands in longing for the distant shore,

but the woeful boatman, Charon, chooses these and those

and fends off others, forcing them from the sandy strand.

DM 143

Verano

Porte D'entrée

Peter Weltner

♥ ♠ ♦ ♣

Peter Weltner

Summer in a Field

The red grey dust penetrates

everything. After a soaking shower

the viscous coat of it separates,

cracking into broken, asymmetric discs.

The sun bakes fields, hills into a thin

glaze of earthy orange, the days so hot

rusty leaves fall from trees, tin

barn roofs blaze white, and wild flowers'

petals waft and drift in the wind

like bits and pieces of confetti tossed

into the air near the woods, flying like winged

slim things dancing in space over the fractured earth.

Peter Weltner is a longtime friend of the Macabre & author of over 16 collections of poetry, including And They Reached Out Their Hands in Longing for the Distant Shore (Marrowstone Books, 2022) which this is drawn from. He has lived in San Francisco CA since 1969 with his husband Atticus.