KNOT Magazine
Fall Issue 2022
George Stallé
Sunset
A counterpoint to Robert Bly’s “Dawn”
Morning light dries to attention
citizens of a flowering new day.
All seek the shade at sunset.
Ebbing laughter of throaty shorebirds
skitters and fights through the day,
cleansing bleached hours at sunset.
Saltmarsh quivers subside,
osprey clutch opens,
meets the jeweled dance at sunset.
A pause at dune’s crest,
God’s measured respite,
a wellspring of hope at sunset.
After the flower
After the flower, certain seeds lazily rise
up and beyond, where they eventually fall
into the darkened stillness of deep water,
carried in meandering whorls
to the moist embrace of woodland loam.
They find a home, take hold,
accept the questioning plunge of roots
in their collective search for strength,
blessings from every mist,
nutrients from every soil giver.
Launch from the vibrant silence!
Emerge, fortified, to find
time suspended in God’s temple.
With the osmosis of spirits, freedom,
and a song praising the inexorable flow
of life.
Row into dawn
Tribute to Toby Wallace
My pulling mates and I
are rowing into dawn
past grasping air
through the vast, black wall
opening, closing
Undulant ink swells
surging from below
up and over the leviathan
darkly down the backside
of indeterminate depth
The cosmos, our shepherd,
its gauzy pinpricks weaving
night streaks to starflung miles
pulled into the rolling void
succumbing forever
Allowing thrusts above
stroke, lift, one
stroke, lift, two
oblivious while sharing
a collective remembrance
Enveloped by the rising, azure cocoon
of the pre-dawn sky
we pull to the unknown
pull to the deeply sonorous call
of dawn’s gentle advance
George Stallé has worked in the arts, entertainment, tourism, news media and education fields. He has been a school music teacher for the past 15 years. Originally from Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, he now sheepishly admits to living in New Jersey, and claims to be the only person who has done PR for Shamu, handed Benny Goodman a glass of water onstage, and flown a blimp. A clarinetist and a graduate of the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music, he plays everything from blues to classical. He is also a pretty mean jazz whistler.
His first poem, “Alphabet Allegory”, was published in the May 2013 issue of the online journal, First Literary Review-East. “Another way to go”, a piece of flash fiction, was published in the July 2014 online edition of Pure Slush.