CYNTHIA PITMAN - DARKNESS DROPS

Cynthia Pitman, a retired Advanced Placement English teacher from Orlando, Florida, has been published in Scarlet Leaf, Vita Brevis, Pain and Renewal Anthology, Third Wednesday (One Sentence Poem Contest finalist), Saw Palm (Pushcart Prize nominee, 2019), Amethyst Review, Adelaide, Right Hand Pointing, Red Fez (Story of the Week), and others. Her first poetry collection, The White Room, was recently published by Kelsay Books.

Darkness Drops
​

​And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?
 – W.B. Yeats, The Second Coming.

Signs: “Something Wicked  This Way Comes”
​

​A grim harbinger, this one black bird.
Just a dark gash in the foggy sky --
a moving gash, stately,
floating on the opaque wind-waves.
Somewhere below is the landscape,
withholding the secrets
of hidden prey and elusive sanctuary,
both sought by the lofty bird
for sustenance, for life.

But this bird also seeks Delight:
a splash of color,
a bright-burning sun,
a flash of flowers,
a tree,
anything but the boundless dolor
of the day’s sky,

The panorama below it
promises no respite
from this lifeless life,
a life so fruitless, so flat,
with only gray fog encaging
the bird, its birdsongs,
and its futile efforts
to defy the virus
and fly away.

Signs: Behold a Pale Horse
​

​By day, the sun will go black,
trapped by a cold halo –
daylight denied.

At night, a blood moon will heighten
the midnight fights of feral cats.
The Four Horsemen will arrive.

The ground will grumble under their
galloping steeds as tectonic plates
stretch to claim new terrain.

The rifts will split the earth.
The masses will fall to the depths
of a yawning abyss.

A few will flee with nowhere to go.
Soon they will slow, breathless,
and claw the earth with desperate crawls.
But still the ragged prophet on the corner
will stand steady and hold high his sign:
“Repent! The End is Nigh!”
 

Contagion: The Silver Urn
​

Inside this run-down bungalow
we call our home
hides a sterling silver urn.
Seen or unseen, it casts its lethal spell
on all who enter here.
Breathing out an ominous chill,
its malice weaves through the rooms,
embracing all who linger here.
This circling stalker makes it clear:
there is no escape.
Held by the spell of the silver urn,
we will soon wither and diminish
into nothing – and we don’t even know it.
 
\

Contagion: The Coronavirus Masquerade
​

​Some say the mask doesn’t work.
We wear it anyway.
Others say we masquerade
our Selves into believing that this totem — 
which is but a bloodless sacrifice
to the mighty Coronavirus — 
will save us from this mindless,
merciless invader.
It will not.
The defiant, angry and righteous,
hurl curses at this totem,
while the fearful cling to it. 
All we can see of one another
is the eyes — eyes that disguise
the Self and pierce the mask,
which is either discarded too late
with a bravado bray
or melded to the fearful faces 
by false hope.

Renewal: The Lockdown Unlocked     
​

​Today I walked on water.
For the first time in too long
I went outside. No mask.
I squinted my eyes at the florescent sky,
trying to heal myself with Vitamin D
after the quarantine.
I skipped down the cracked concrete sidewalk.
My bare feet splashed and kicked
the warm summer stream
born of the sudden afternoon storm,
the kind of storm that comes as no surprise,
so faithful is it to its eternal vow –
to always, always wash the world.
Its raging rain never fails to cleanse a path
for travels of both the guilty and innocent –
we who have walked alone through fear,
ringing a leper’s bell.

Renewal: Awakening
​

​Lie back on the young spring grass.
Let the wind ruffle its blades
against your skin. Feel their green.
The sun shines softly today.
Let it in.
Close your eyes, but only half-way.
See the blur of the azure sky,
puffed with clouds of white and gray.
The birds cry high and wild
as they float on the waves of air.
Today tastes like warm wine.
Drink in its elixir.
Begin anew.