"Lullaby with Green Rowboat"

Lullaby with Green Rowboat

for Sheila

immemorial silence before you were born a
full moon fluorescent thru blinds

then sound—raindrops syncopating outside
your window a banjo plucked in a room next door

in the woods the jack-in-the-pulpit’s purple &
brown inflorescence unfurls in May’s green

dusk air off the river these vegetative
ghosts clustering above an island the island

catches your eye without fail these
raindrops pooling beyond the window these

notes absorbed in a flow of quavers the
same shade of green as the rowboat that

floats atop sawhorses thru night’s
larger dream about rivers & full moons blooming


Jack Hayes
© 2013