in
the middle, walking that
familiar fine line between
craving and need. Harnessed
grid of hidden grapes,
twining vines beckoning, snaking
through the canopy of
green, green, green and sweet purple,
plump and bursting on
my tongue. There isn’t enough
wine in this lush valley
to slake my thirst. So
turn away. Golden grass
climbs the steep mountain, tendrils
of fog caress treetops,
cold fingers prying earth
from sky, a miracle of
silence. And now, mid-hush, a
rushing breath of breeze lifts
a balloon skyward from
shadow of mountain. Folks
above me wave, and the
burning sight brings me to
my knees where I belong.
Pat
Rushin's fiction and poetry have appeared in a number of litmags, both
print and online. He has a screenplay in development with the Zanuck
Company. Pat coaches creative writers at the University of Central
Florida, where he also serves as fiction editor of The Florida Review. My
wife and I spent a summer In Yountville, CA, she working a travel nurse
assignment,
mountains to the left, me
me teaching online and writing. And every morning I walked this road.
And many
mornings, the hot air balloons followed my trek. A year later, I was
teaching an intro
creative writing class and gave my students the assignment to write
about a place that had
special meaning to them, first in a page of prose, then in a poem. I
answered the same
assignment, and this was the result.
