John Muro

Beau Soir

–after Claude Debussy

The sun is long settled and the sky
has been assembled then reassembled
by an artisan wind, hastily extracting,
polishing and reappointing stars across
the delicate drape and ruffled hem
of heaven when, exhausted, it falls
back upon lamp-lit porches while
woodsmoke rises like flak, dark and
directionless, and long streams of ice –
translucent strands of shagbark –
overflow wooden soffits destined
for foundations of slender stone and
I’m certain such moments of random
and broken beauty merit more than
a prayerful pause and a deep-seated
need to hold onto them then remembering
that soft-focused hour some days before
when, approaching dusk, a few starlings
had descended upon tiny branches
overlaid with snow, wanting to re-leaf
a late-turning elm as if all things in need
of mending in this life can easily be
repaired or made whole again as I
continued on, strangely elated and alone,
towards a shoreline I can smell but
cannot hear and a tideless strait that’s
as still and dark as a ledge of black ice.

John Muro, who is a resident of Connecticut and lover of all things chocolate, has authored two books of poems — In the Lilac Hour and Pastoral Suite — in 2020 and 2022, respectively. He is a three-time Pushcart nominee, a Best of the Net nominee and a recipient of a 2023 Grantchester Award. John’s work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Acumen, Barnstorm, Delmarva, Grey Sparrow, Sky Island, Valparaiso and Willawaw.