Poems by Ilene Millman
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Dimming
by Ilene Millman
From Canary Fall 2024
Ilene lives near the Raritan River watershed, and often rides a bike/walking path that runs between the Delaware and Raritan canal from Bull Island south for more than twenty miles. She recently saw about a dozen turtles floating along on a single log sunning themselves in the late afternoon sunlight.
This emptiness hardly noticeable
not like an empty coat on a café chair
or empty seat on a crowded train,
more a lessening.
My patio screen once
covered with moths
more delicate even than a song of air
the host of Monarch butterflies
milkweed hungry hovering
over my zinnias on pink afternoons
and fireflies, those lanterns of the night sky,
of the multitude
less.
A neighbor’s pitch—
it’s not for sure
a friend posts a quilt of patchy science—
What don’t they see
under streetlamps at night
naked windshields after hot summer drives?
Perhaps we’ve grown used to it
this emptiness that resembles fullness—
yes, mosquitos still bite
but the thin cricket-sound
breathing last fall,
a thread unraveling?
© Ilene Millman