OLD MAN AT THE DEPOT
The old man at the depot, once again
Squinting at the tardy evening train,
Clocks it as though it were his rightful place;
But tracks of wagons line his leathery face
And arch his shoulder bones and rope his hands,
Yet never shake the creed on which he stands,
Absurd and lonely, and as loath to bend
As that one stalk of grain sown by the wind
Atop the depot in this lonesome town
Where no one coaxed it up or cut it down.
But winter with its weight of ice and rain
Inevitable will bend unbending grain;
The train will whistle past an empty door,
And the station will be smaller than before;
Then an engineer on an evening run
Will slowly head into the setting sun.
BRIEF RAIN
She leans forward
into the faded light,
as this rainy day
drags across her guitar strings
in minor key.
Old forgotten chords
from her repertoire of pain
whisper on the fretted keys
accompanied
by rain.
Somewhere along the night
the mute guitar,
with this new hurt,
will hang on the wall,
then tomorrow, she will listen
for your call.
Incident
Wonder sparred with disbelief
For in noon's midget hour
Inside my auto had appeared
An iridescent tower.
A spider in a spider world
Was spinning tediously
To build a home, to weave a dream
Of rainbow filligree.
A gust of wind shook tower walls
And prisms in the sun
Danced quietly then fell apart;
Another dream was done.
All day I thought of brittle dreams
That one wind can erase,
And swiped at bits of gossamer
That lingered on my face.
.
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