Rachel Aviva Burns
Rachel Aviva Burns is a writer and artist living and working in Dobbs Ferry, New York. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in publications including the Atlanta Review, Bluestem Magazine, Sand Hills Literary Magazine, Vallum, and the Wallace Stevens Journal.
Underneath the elevated highway
The water is dark and green and still,
except where heavy raindrops
disturb the quiet surface.
There, where the drops are falling in,
there are little bursts of silver spray
and concentric silver circles,
moving and rippling out and away.
And the circles and droplets are only reflecting
the sky, which is clouded and gray.
Two swans are swimming by the far bank.
Their soft white wings and curved white necks
reflect in the waters. Perhaps to escape
the steady rain, they swim and fish
under cover of the highway.
Where the rain hits the water,
I can see the water moving,
as the tide drags the rippling circles away.
And where the water is safe from rain,
the stillness of the surface
is only an illusion.
The water there, too, is moving out and away.
The elevated highway stands in the water
like some many-legged beast.
The air is humid with watchful waiting.
On the east side of the elevated highway,
the side overlooking the open sea,
there sits a black and white spotted osprey,
and he is watching the swans and the sea.
Between where the rain falls on either side,
the swans are dunking their small white heads
into the dark green waters and
their sharp black beaks are snapping at
the plankton and smallest fish.
The water laps at the feet of the pillars
that bear the weight of the elevated highway,
and where, on the pillars, the water has receded,
there are rings of damp and dirt.
There are no cars on the elevated highway.
And out at sea there are no boats.
Where the swans are swimming
and diving and feasting,
the waters are drifting, off and away.
