Deer Flies by Greg Bryant

The clover and the sandburs make their peace

with deer flies with a sip of sweet nectar

and some pollen to carry to the neighbor.

 

The swallows thrive on flies, touching each

in mid-air like the tip of a whip.

 

We humans offer them our blood

for their gift of wisdom.

A long walk teaches all you need to know.

The dancing swarm behind your knees

gives you a quicker pace, shows

suffering and joy are proportioned

to the attention you give them.

Breathe the free breeze.

Pick the cottonwoods by their voices,

the orioles and buntings by their flash.

Once a mile a hot stab at the cuff of your sock

is all the reminder you need.

The flies are not what you walk for.

Slap it, turn your eyes to the treetops and

whatever you do keep moving. If you stop

 

to face the flies, you’ll kill a few.

Stay still long enough and the flies will leave.

They plague only the quick, the moving.

 

The shadow sweeping across yours

tells you the vultures are interested.

Your choice. Flies or vultures?

Moving or still?

 

Turn around. Face the road. Something

will catch you, but let it be unawares.

 

~ Greg Bryant

Greg Bryant and his wife Susan live in Robinson, Kansas. Greg teaches English composition, literature, and creative writing at Highland Community College. This poem was previously published on Greg’s blog, poetseye.wordpress.com.

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Ice Skating Under the Lunar Eclipse: Late Evening, February 20, 2008 by Greg Bryant

This one night, twelve or fifteen

of us are tracing and tracing

ovals and figure-eights,

our blades clicking and swishing and

shaving dust from the hard bright ice.

We lift our gaze on every eastward pass

to the soft brick-red moon,

strangely hooded in the bent rays

of our passing shadow.

We loop and spin, again and again

pass shadowed faces,

sharp wind-watery eyes,

sharing an intimate, innocent

secret this one night skating

under a ruddy dim moon.

One of us rounds the western curve

readying another orbit.

Wrapped in wool and feathers and fur

she lunges into the straightaway

drawn like a lone comet and hurtling

toward another of us waiting with one arm out to

clasp the passing hand and they spin with dangerous speed laughing

in muffled barks lost in the wide prairie

and fling each other away, plunge into separate darkness,

planning the next pass.

We watch them, feeling their love,

murmuring wonder at this

weird late-night gathering of bodies

loving the spinning star-pierced sky,

loving the still air and the hard chill,

loving the terra cotta cast of the round moon,

a freak reunion of frost, friends,

and planets momentarily aligned,

clusters of cosmic dust

circling and shining and sharing the shade,

attending the hiss of a curving blade,

Falling toward each other from distances

and swinging fiercely

in the tug of friendship

this one night.

~ Greg Bryant
Greg Bryant and his wife Susan live in Robinson, Kansas. Greg teaches English composition, literature, and creative writing at Highland Community College.

109. To the Stars Through Difficulty: Greg Bryant

It is a drought so dangerous
ant lions brave the newbaked dust
out in the realm of dew, now dry,
and set trenchwork and trebuchets
in full sun under open sky.
I’ve watched them building here for days.
What if this drought moves in and stays?
Ant lions and their desert kin
will fatten in the copper haze
with desert manners, desert skin.
–Greg Bryant