Poem Renaissance – Michael Dwayne Smith

Gyroscope Review is celebrating National Poetry Month with a Poem Renaissance, a review of previously published poems looking for new life and new views. Every day through May 20^th, a new poem to fall in love with all over again.

Sonoma County Creation Story
by Michael Dwayne Smith

High under a Santa Rosa moon,
drinking an agreeable Pinot Noir
along these acres everyone knows as
Tarwater Road,
we fall into a flickering communion on the porch,
old laughter and recovered stories now
stitching together the easy fabric of our once separated lives.

Pine silhouettes stretch away from us,
pointing to the glitter-dusted
black-blue canvas above,
and I wonder out loud if in fact we aren’t trapped
in some cosmic painting,
impressionistic daubs and swirls in a vernacular
only an awesome being could understand.

Al says, If we’re brushstrokes,
the artist must be a beginner.
Alicia reminds us that Art is not perfection.
It occurs to me that if my childhood God exists,
this is my one way to forgiving him—
the moonlit path of mercy
between one flawed creator and another.

Once, I tell them, I witnessed great bonfires
built at the snow-glazed edge of Alaskan woods,
flames in which the spirits of children and women and men
snapped brightly up into a lustered sky
just like tonight’s,
riding the quickening sparks and embers,
before floating back to earth as lingering ash.

And perhaps, blessed friends,
for all our bristling about purpose and meaning and truth,

we too may be simply this—
bright licks of enlightenment in the universe,
flashing each a moment,
left then to drift
sleepily down into the common genius of creation.

*This poem first appeared in The Autumn Sound Review, May of 2013

Michael Dwayne Smith haunts many literary houses, including Bending Genres, The Cortland Review, Gargoyle, Third Wednesday, Heavy Feather Review, Monkeybicycle, and Chiron Review. Two new full-length collections of his poetry are forthcoming in 2025: Shaking Music from the Angry Air (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions) and Roadside Epiphanies Resurrection (Whiskey City Press). He's a recipient of the Hinderaker Poetry Prize, the Polonsky Prize for fiction, and several Pushcart Prize/Best of the Net nominations. He lives near a Mojave Desert ghost town with his family, rescued horses, and Calamity the California Calico cat.

Don’t forget to read the Spring 2025 Issue, available now, online and in print

Previous Renaissance Poets

April Poets

May Poets