I dug the grave
Would he fit I thought
And so I enlarged it to
The dream I had of
Throwing dirt overhead
From the deep pit
Hoping to strike water
Or oil
But it was not to be
Digging never amounts
To anything but
Sorry poverty.
I tell my love in rhyme
In a sentence that must end,
A measurable dividend,
To hold her time against time.
I praise her honest eyes
That keep their beauty clear.
I have nothing to fear
From her, though the world lies,
If I don’t lie. Though the hill
Of winter rise, a silent ark,
Our covenant with the dark,
We will speak on until
The flowers fall, and the birds
With their bright songs depart.
Then we will go without art,
Without measure, or words.
Wendell Berry
He rarely stayed up past nine, usually by eight he would retire to the room with the A/C window loudly humming. In the front room we would be up watching TV, where I would move from the vinyl couch to his more comfortable recliner, usually changing the channel from CNN he always watched. In the kitchen mom would be washing dishes in the single cold water faucet sink or baking a blueberry pie from what we had picked earlier in the day. A pot of hot water was always simmering for the dishes on the back burner or a bath in the four leg tub. Before daylight he would be awake in the kitchen, lighting the gas stove to take the chill off with a fat lightered stick, getting ready to pour the pancakes on the stoves built in griddle, sprinkled with blueberries naturally.
I viewed from afar
The distant glory
Turned to get into the car
And it was right before me.
In ignorance of the source, our want
affirms abundance in these days.
Truth keeps us though we do not know it.
O Spirit, our desolation is your praise.
Wendell Berry
The sun of his last day sets
clear in the sweetness of his liberty.
Wendell Berry
In a three foot circle
The moon appeared through the clouds
A red shouldered hawk hurried by
In the far distance a Swallowtail kite passed
I said, oh great Bald Eagle
Bearer of deep wisdom
Can you enlighten me?
Oh well, think I’ll ask an Osprey.
I saw Noah down at the Toyota
all dapper on a Monday with
bow tie and a hardback book
and he told me of a friend in
Iran who only took photos
wonderful photos from her yard
and I told him, it would not
disappoint me, if they confined me
to just the yard
and so the librarian who only lived
in yellow houses all his eighty
plus years opened his book
to read
and for some reason it made me
want to go and read some poetry
That morning while out visiting Azalea and Jasmine
Mrs Boyette quietly slipped by on her morning walk
She was the mother of Greg and Brian from whom we bought from Brian
our home in ninety five
Often she would stop and come into the yard
and I’d show her the place where her granddaughters names are etched in the concrete
the pool where they swam and where some
trees once were
and I’d get to thinking of the other neighbors
Of what came of Mrs Thompson’s son on the corner
Of Mrs Duncan and her son now gone and her struggle to
keep going on alone
Of Paul and Lora and who moved in next to them
when the Geigers sold and moved on
Of how the Hunters fare
And who is the current renter in the Kerns place next to them?
And if the fellow next to them, who was good friends with Mr Brannon now gone across the street
Still holds it against me I held his misdirected
UPS shipment of a fender too long?
I must ask Barbara next door, she will know.
