by John Muro
“There can be but one teacher – nature. She must always be consulted.”
– Camille Pissarro
I’m wondering how best to preserve
this day when I find myself summoned
outside into the warming light, tossing
my net beyond the low islands and
the jagged edge of the Sound,
hoping its threads return in gilded
attire, yielding a tangle of blessings
culled from both sea and hollow
that are a mix of old-growth splendor
and the commonplace, while I fall
back to silence, watching the way
the morning light breaks apart and
is then quickly redrawn by wind gusts
that blur and wrinkle the surface of
the water, and entranced by the soft
rustling of the beach grass and taste
the tang of salt-scented air while
white-capped tides are suffused with
the same mussel-blue hue as the
open fist of sky and seeing how
both air and water are stitched together
by these clamorous gulls rising in
rapture then swooning towards shore
and asking what more can be done
other than to try and somehow slow
earth’s hurry and call summer back.
A resident of Connecticut, John Muro has published three volumes of poems — In the Lilac Hour (2020), Pastoral Suite (2022) and, most recently, A Bountiful Silence (2025). Since the publication of his first book of poems, John has been nominated four times for the Pushcart, two times for the Best of the Net and he also received a Grantchester Award in 2023. John’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including Acumen, the Belfast Review, Delmarva, Grey Sparrow, Sky Island, the Valparaiso Review and elsewhere.
This poem previously appeared in Valparaiso Review.