“Voice of the Bright Light”

by John Croy

framed in the window

the girls in the river

in the bright light

sprawling child like

in her shrill singy voice

sounds pitch across the sandy stretch

from the magnolia shade to the live oak

right yonder by the prickly pears

dip in the sandy sage gullies

against the hail of the quickening dusk

burst like a bright light

beam plays across the wavering heat

dances the white twine

seems to twirl curled broadside

white in the dark

to its orangy pine heart

in the sandy sage gullies

darkness seems to rise

under a moss – swagged oak

the smothery smell

back into the eclipsing gleam of the quickening dusk