The Living Dark

ISBN # 0-9741648-2-8

$15




  

 

The Living Dark

Elk tracks cross the beach
to the water at low tide
and back to the black hole
of forest slicing down to the ocean;


beyond the spoil of illumination
waits a living dark
where boughs grow down
to a matted under-story
of water sound and insect

a fertile darkness
pulsing with imagination
exiled by our devotion
to brightness

by our fear of all
we refuse to know
but will know one day

when the fecund hollow
reaches up into our shallow glimmer
pulling us down
to the uncertainty
to the darkness
to life.

 

Deep Root of Trees

Softly in the morning
I approach you
humble in the returning warmth.
I come as stranger and lover
without pretense
each touch familiar
yet evanescent
as a bird.
I come quietly
without demand
my prayer
the hunger of the river
for the deep root of trees.

 

Critical Acclaim
 
"Don's poetry is alive,
vigorous, startling,
ruminative, quickwitted,
poignant, piercing, and
very often gently electric."
-- Brian Doyle, author 
 
"A maker of sturdy
constructions in his working
life, Don Hynes shows a
deft touch with small things
in his poems – the quick
turn that sees the growing
vine. His book The Living
Dark reaches deep."
-- Kim Stafford, author 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

  

 

 

 

Down This Street

The hint of yellow
in September light,
the first chestnuts
littering the sidewalk,
my heart beating
after the run,
then walking beneath
the green cover of leaves
in the last warmth
of summer’s end;
it’s taken so long
searching for my own life
what a nice surprise
to come upon it suddenly
down this street, this day,
right here where I live.