NERUDA’S FLOATING ARMIES
The mountains were gods to the lakes below.
Spawners in streams, and the arterial earth.
Caves let no man burrow, jowl to flesh, following the glide
of the hawks above, great talons of final judgement,
it is not I who have made things this way, not I
of Neruda's floating armies, a heart's fine shield over all;
that I should come to you as thirsting traveller is no small miracle,
have you seen the roads, counted mud frogs through your palsied hands?
And the falls of the hills dropping goat calls through the canyon,
plodding serpents of diamondback gold.
Trickster coyote snares, I could not have laughed in a finer manner.
The mountains waiting like lonely wonders,
no friend to build into foe.
Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Borderless Journal, GloMag, Red Fez and Lothlorien Poetry Journal.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Click here to access Wild Winds: The Borderless Anthology of Poems
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