swifts  &  s l o w s · a quarterly of crisscrossings

winter dusk-night
Russell Willis

← back or next →

Winter Dusk-Night

The painted sky of dusk-night, horizon laced with the silhouette of tree limbs, scrubbed clean of
leaves by Autumn, framed with ridgelines darker than the sky, the no-color of charcoal gray, not
absolutely black, colorless nonetheless. Sky infiltrates and borders the lace with sun-colors
surely chosen by an artist and not dictated by the laws of physics (as if those are mutually
exclusive!), not just orange, red, pink, magenta, yellow, but a concoction, best suited to a
cocktail or silk scarf, a single bright light penetrates the not just orange, red, pink, magenta,
yellow. The second brightest thing in the sky (even if only the one otherbright thing in the sky);
focal point, mesmerizing in its pointedness, its clarity. Obviously not “just” a star (as if stars are
just trifles). The other light draws your vision up, crescent of fiery brightness clinging to a
dustball perfect in its roundness, transient in its inconstancy; surely a mirage, or optical illusion
planted in the dusk-night sky. The sky not black, neither no-color gray, but some color
suggesting simultaneousemptiness, darkness, substance, richness; mercury mixed with dark
chocolate and licorice and merlot, not planted, but swimming in this dusk-night sky. Without
warning, your eye is captured by a star, a real star. Magic evaporates, the night sky now holds
court, black penetrated by the star hosts.

← back or next →

Russell Willis has been profiled in THE POET Magazine and published in twenty-eight online and print journals and seventeen anthologies. Russell grew up in and around Texas and was vocationally scattered as an engineer, ethicist, college teacher and administrator, and Internet education entrepreneur throughout the Southwest and Great Plains, finally settling in Vermont with his wife, Dawn. He emerged as a poet in 2019 with the publication of three poems in The Write Launch.  Website →