the lightning bug tree
in the middle of the grove
the sand break
in the middle of the river
the blackened angel cloud
in the middle of the noon sky
the stone and red leaf,
the driftwood and oyster puddle
the cold rain of winter,
a brown bear waking to the snow
a track along the ice
in the middle of the storm
December, the drought ending,
rain washed trees bleeding their color
and one quarried house
at the edge of the great swamp of snow
Michael H. Brownstein’s work has appeared in The Café Review, American Letters and Commentary, Skidrow Penthouse, Xavier Review, Hotel Amerika, Free Lunch, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, The Pacific Review, Poetrysuperhighway.com, and many other places. His nine poetry chapbooks include A Period of Trees (Snark Press, 2004), What Stone Is (Fractal Edge Press, 2005), I Was a Teacher Once (Ten Page Press, 2011), Firestorm: A Rendering of Torah (Camel Saloon Press, 2012), The Possibility of Sky and Hell: From My Suicide Book (White Knuckle Press, 2013) and most recently, The Katy Trail, Mid-Missouri, 100 Degrees Outside and Other Poems (Kind of Hurricane Press, 2013).