Where Two Fences Meet

Where two fences meet at the corner

the leaves gather, blown there by the autumn winds

swirling them across the yard and down the pathway

through my garden, gone now, too, in the changing

of the season, summer into fall, the leaves gathering

to face the transformation together, green gone to gold

and red and orange, as we all must in the waning seasons

of our own years, where two fences meet at the corner. 

Where is the Poem

Where is the poem

that lies hidden

in the autumn wind,

lifting it up, turning it

like a red leaf blown,

over and over again,

and setting it down quietly

on the ledge outside my window,

bedded there to rest, awaiting

the season’s change,

waiting to be written.

Tinnitus

 A dark night, moonless, heaven’s lights hidden

behind an overcast sky, the kind forecasting gloom,

and lying in bed, the only sound is the ringing in my ears,

tinnitus, that constant noise we learn to tune out, except

on nights like this, that and the house settling, and a branch,

perhaps, scraping against the walls, or scratching the window;

even the dogs are silent, listening, raising their heads and hearing

something beyond my perception, or an owl screeching off in the distance,

only the soft click of their tags hitting the floor when they put

their heads down again, startling me, nothing more, the ringing

in my ears and the gloom of a darkened night here in the woods.

 

My sleep is restless, tossing and turning, nodding off and waking

again, a sleep full of the strange dreams I’ll not remember in the morning,

except their strangeness, the waking up, the glimpses of what

might have been, might be, remembering, though, too well, the restless

sleep, the ringing in my ears, the darkness, and an overcast sky

forecasting gloom, an invitation to the things that lurk there

behind the dreams, behind the darkness and the silence of the night.

 

It was this way in childhood, tucked safely into my bed, but the sleep

not coming easily, even then, the silence intensifying and the night noises

taking form out of the silence, things invited into reality by my imagination

and childhood fears, the darkness and the monsters under

the bed, hiding in the closets, the strange sounds and shadows

that crept out, crept in, their sounds low and rough, coming from

nowhere and everywhere, and I’d pull the covers and the pillows

over my head, pull my teddy close, but to no avail, evil was there. Now,

older and wiser and far more logical, knowing the noises aren’t

what they appear to be, aren’t what I think they are, aren’t the haunting shadows

in the corners of my room, but just the furnace roaring to life, a door clicking

shut, air in the pipes, not specters rising through the floor. My imagination,

fertile in childhood, has matured over the years, adulthood into old age,

and it has again released the shades and shadows, again their voices,

well preserved and louder now, calling out, the moans and roars of a silence

broken as terrorizing as before, tucked into a bed in a room I shared with my brother,

terrors returning again to me who created them all those years ago; they’ve found me

here in adulthood, scared still and pulling the covers and pillows over my head,

shutting them out, pushing them away, they nothing but the irrational fears

of an 8-year-old, irrational fears come to life in old age, the fears I never

conquered, the fears of the dark, of what might be there, hidden, the fears

of not waking up or, worse, waking up alone and finding myself lost

in a world I only imagined, a dark world afraid, this imaginary place

suddenly made real again, all these years later, the shades and the shadows,

the specters of death rising in a silence broken, rising through the floor,

hiding in the corners of darkness, creeping out, creeping in.

Rain Always Follows the Cattle

 - A Poem for Susan -

Rain always follows the cattle,

or so say the old farmers well-versed

in folk lore, the reading of the signs

left in nature, like my grandfather

who swore by the cows as predictors of rain:

if they’re lying down, rain is coming in,

but standing up, these cud-chewing bovines

feeding, and there’ll be no rain, safe for gardening,

safe for haying, safe to work the land, safe

for a moonlit drive, a horse drawn cart plodding

around the field and down the lane with family,

a Saturday social, community coming together.

Or the moon, a quarter moon: he always said

if you could hang a bucket safely there, a feat

I couldn’t imagine, no rain would fall, but

if the bucket couldn’t safely hang there, but slip

right off, the moon not a good hook for a bucket

handle, rain would follow, water spilled from the bucket falling.

 

I never knew whether to believe him or not, too young

myself to tell if he was telling a story, making this up,

or if he had some vast wisdom, some secret knowledge,

some experience that I lacked. And now, 60 years later,

Gramp long gone from earth, joining the sages and old farmers,

I still don’t know, not sure to believe him or not; I’ve seen

the truth about cows and moons often enough, sometimes accurate,

sometimes not, just not sure, city born, city bred, “civilized,”

for I have not learned those ancient skills of nature’s signs,

divination, folklore, untrusted, a sin even, of witchcraft,

a lost art gone with the grave, gone from us the unbelieving,

the unsure, the ignorant of country ways, lost

to a future grounded in proof, grounded in certainty.