Bright Green Vintage
I dreamt kindness to animals was widespread,
Their demand on our powers greater and still greater.
If a rope broke, we released the herd.
If a drop of rain fell, we unveiled a flock of birds.
We trained sunlight on all the iron bars,
Brought meat to those who most needed it.
We dispersed the fog and freed up the meadows,
Producing the most intense heat for running.
Hills that would be impossible for us, and routes, and islands,
Went to animals. Their prospects were extensive and of every pleasing kind.
BRIAN JOHNSON is the author of Self-Portrait, a chapbook; Torch Lake and Other Poems, a finalist for the Norma Farber First Book Award; and Site Visits, a collaborative work with the German painter Burghard Müller-Dannhausen. His work has appeared several anthologies and many journals, including Bennington Review, Massachusetts Review, West Branch, and Posit. He directs the first-year writing program at Southern Connecticut State University and teaches composition, poetry, and rhetoric.