James Stoner - Foliate Oak Literary Magazine
And at the River’s Edge I Stand


by James Stoner

Lately, I stand at the river’s edge.
The swollen moon steals whatever light it can find
From this red rose that grows grey like the landscape.
The vast night hangs lower than the treetops.
Nearby, the hidden low-pitched croaking of the frogs.
The fluid rippling of the stream.
From a distance there came an eerie echoing pair wails,
Golden drops that swell on its surface from two loons--
Drunken things who dive under into the murky gloom.
My soul, a stringed instrument, sang to itself,
Invisibly touched by the loons’ call,
A secret vibrating, vivid river song.
Bio: James earned a Masters in Liberal Studies and a Masters in Creative Writing. He is a Senior Lecturer of English at the University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee. He was a featured poet in the The Pacific Review and has had published other poems in Cultural Logic, The Awakenings Review, Education Studies, and in the poetry anthology Silent Voices.