Stand close

If you had stood where I had stood,

on a mostly overcast afternoon in January,

you would have easily seen the gulls

circling, white wings over white turbine-churned water,

their calls sometimes piercing through

the whine of spinning generators.

And you could hardly have missed

seeing the water flowing round the bend

and then the next bend and the next.

I did not bother to count the bends

or the circling gulls.

An island of white limestone to the left,

a red brick power plant to the right -

why was my gaze drawn to the horizon?

At that distance the bare branches

lining the banks of the Kaw River

were fuzzy swatches of gray.

And then, as if a patch of gray underneath the gray

had caught on fire, the burning color of sunlight sped

from bare branches to the streaming water into my glancing eyes.

Seconds later, not a thing appeared different -

still circling, still bending,

still whining and churning,

And no charring, no dying embers.

Except that the tips of the white winged gulls looked singed with charcoal.

One step sooner or closer and I might have been consumed.