FLAPPING EDGES

— By Michael Jerry Tupa

Two agitated streams
quarrel over a lonely rock,
stranded in the river's fork,
knowing not which way to go,
while the billowing lampshade
of yellow dusk
filters the glowing sky.

Day's almost gone.
Dark's spreading peace
calms churning clouds.
Sun's yellow-brown fingers,
crease the western horizon.

Time is carried away
on white-tipped wings
as a lonely bird
flees the flapping edges

of the falling night.

(First appeared in Wilderness House Literary Review in Spring 2009)