Backdrop – a poem by Joanne Maybury

Backdrop

Cloud curtains pull back to reveal a stage,
the backdrop as perfect as a Klein blue canvas.
The sun hangs stage left, radiant, 
prickling our skin with a film of sweat.

We stand and wait,
secretly hoping the action will not begin.
We gradually lose ourselves in the depths of it. 
All minor irritations and daily tasks take a back seat.
Our perspective widens and the fulness of it
reaches the periphery of our vision.

Eventually, a bird flies by
and we welcome its swooping signature,
an unexpected moment of wild beauty beyond us.
The light begins to dim as the curtain falls.
We sigh, and carry with us through the night
a memory of warming skin,
a bird in flight, and an endless sky
more perfect than Klein’s blue. 

Joanne Maybury has lived in Uganda and Sudan, has worked a variety of roles including as a field linguist and graphic designer, and latterly has journeyed with the chronically and terminally ill. She now lives in the borderlands of Scotland where she is learning, amongst other things, to be a hopeful gardener. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Scotland, Snakeskin Poetry, Theology, Penumbra Online and others.