For Sale

The sweet smell

of cured tobacco eases

out the barn’s door

into winter’s wind.

It holds odds

and ends of farm life,

a rust ladened disc plow,

an ancient toilet,

and sap encrusted hatchets

that once rang in the fields.

 A stack of standing sticks

slumps in the back corner. 

In earlier times, the barn held

tobacco ladened poles

hanging from the bars. 

Today, not much is left

of the hanging structure. 

The barn looks out over

empty fields.  Little Blue Stem

grows where cows

grazed.  Wind rustles

dried stalks. 

Snow crusts the ground. 

Half-barrel water troughs

reside on their sides

along with ones that held corn. 

Barb-wired fence sags

between cedar posts.

A “For Sale” sign hangs

by the open gate 100 ac +/-. 

Soon bull dozers and backhoes

will populate the fields,

tearing the ground to build

houses with ten acres each.

The tobacco scent and echoes

of cattle will disappear

under the smell of diesel

and truck’s growl.

                                                                        New Croton Review

                                                                        Aug 2023

                                                           

Flames

I light the candle in the jar,

it flames from the match

in blues then yellow, the spindled

point swivels in the breath of the house.

In a hearth, flames warm the home,

dry oak crackles, embers star up the chimney.

Morning ashes, incense of the dead fire,

grey the charred logs.

In a forest, a cinder sparks. The fire

devours everything.  Jumping a firebreak,

it swallows a house. Smoke clouds the sky

to bring on a storm.

Red embers escape to travel the wind. 

With the last tree enveloped in red and orange,

flames are contained. 

In the jar, I smother the flame’s

quiet flutter with the lid, leaving a ring

of black smoke on the rim.

                                                            Oracle  2023

Empty Boxes

I used a lot of empty boxes from the ABC store to vacate one

house into another.  They were just the right size for me to carry,

couldn’t make them too heavy for lifting.  I had some orange

plastic milk crates that were perfect for all my poetry files.

I was downsizing my house, kept all the bird books,

Mary Oliver, signed copies, the ones friends had written. 

Gave the rest to the library in hopes of updating their collection. 

I think they used them in the library book sale.

Some boxes had dividers which made them good for moving

small knick-knacks like the Hummel collection and artwork.

Used pages from “The Independent” for wrapping. Gradually,

the stack on the hearth became the line along the new living room wall.

The last became first: unpacked the bathroom and then the kitchen.

Next followed the books because I knew where they would go.

Slowly, the line along the wall dwindled to one box of items

I could not let go of like the picture of us at the Hotel Peabody opening.

Maybe it’s time to empty that box.

                                                                        Green Silk Journal

                                                                        Spring 2023

DRINKING

to forget.

Maybe Wild Turkey 101 to slow                                               

my crashing mind.

Whiskey on the rocks to erase hours.

Maybe Wild Turkey 101 to slow

the tenacity of alone.                                                

Whiskey on the rocks erases hours,                       

the burn cinders pictures of together.

The tenacity of alone                                              

is sucked under by the bourbon going down.                           

And the burn cinders pictures of together.                                              

One is all it would take

to be sucked under by the bourbon going down.

With my crashing mind

one is all it would take

to forget.

Red Dirt Review   Nov 2011

Doors

How many doors have I closed?

Three houses have gone into memory.

Memphis’ door cracks open every Christmas

to let a card in.  The two in Hillsborough

remain shut, I don’t drive past these.

Should have left one ajar to stay in touch

with my neighbor but it remains locked

and sealed.  Others, their hinges needing

to be oiled, have creaked open.  Walking

the dog, basketball games, the kennel.

I still have one left, it stays blocked

most of the time except when the wind

nudges it open to let in a thought of you.

Dad’s Hip Fracture

 

 

It took only one slip
from your chair

to make your life as
fragile as the broken bone.

 

I’ve
fallen and I can’t get up

 

no laughs or sniggers

from the television
audience,

this time it is real.

 

Two

            from   

                        Physical Therapy          

            come            

                        to                          up.

                                    lift you

I know that you will not
walk again,

 

Curled up like an autumn
leaf,

you sleep. The pump that
carried you

through 89 years, failing.
For the last time,

it trickles the blood
uphill. Your last breath

so weak it could not puff
out a candle.

 

 

 

 

                                                The Broken Plate 2020

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                   

 

 

 

 

Dad’s Hip Fracture

It took only one slip from your chair

to make your life as fragile as the broken bone.

I’ve fallen and I can’t get up

no laughs or sniggers

from the television audience,

this time it is real.

Two

            from   

                        Physical Therapy          

            come            

                        to                          up.

                                    lift you

I know that you will not walk again,

Curled up like an autumn leaf,

you sleep. The pump that carried you

through 89 years, failing. For the last time,

it trickles the blood uphill. Your last breath

so weak it could not puff out a candle.

          

it trickles the blood uphill. Your last breath

so weak it could not puff out a candle.

                                                The Broken Plate 2020

                                               

Duke Energy’s Critical Peak Pricing Day

                             . . .one thing they don’t tell you ‘bout the blues when you got ‘em

                                 You keep on fallin’ cause there ain’t no bottom,

                                 There ain’t no end      Emmylou Harris  Red Dirt Girl

I’m not supposed to use too much energy

between 2 and 8 pm.  Don’t use the washer

or dryer when I can wash and dry

another day.  No worries here,

I don’t have enough energy to get off

the couch much less do laundry. 

These days; my plug is pulled—

not even the dog can lighten my mood. 

I spiral down; grab but miss pleasant thoughts

of buddleia blooming purple by the side of the house,

fireflies drifting upwards in the evening.

I ride these days out but it takes

longer to halt my drop.  Slowly, I emerge

from the darkness to admire drifting

scent of flowers, tiny spots of rising light.

                                                Bond Street Journal/Inkwell Aug 2023

BLUEBIRDS

The male, azure with cinnamon vest, points the way

to an abandoned woodpecker hole. The female weaves

a nest of pine needles, grass.  The young,

naked, blind, demand food.

                                    In the next room, the baby cries:

its diaper is wet.

A green worm in his bill, he waits in a nearby tree,

searches for danger, enters the hole.  He leaves, carries

a fecal sac far from the nest.

                                    The father turns up the volume.

The black snake shimmies up the tree,

parents peck and fuss; chickadees, nuthatches mob it. 

Defeated, the snake retreats.

                                    Shut that baby up.

                                    She rouses from the couch.

                                    I’ll give him something to cry about.

Feathered and sighted, the fledglings

peer from the hole. The father calls 

to the young: fly. 

                                                the water, hot.

The female starts another nest.

                                                the child screams.

Southern Women’s Review  Jan 2012

Snow in the Room

It is cold here but not as icy as your heart,

it is so frigid snow could fall into this room.

It would cover the wound in my heart

but blood would seep to the surface.

Icicles would hang from the chandelier,

daggers waiting to shred my body

as they fall. Spring will come, melt drifts

from the windows, wash me from this room.

Winter

I am not ready for your dragging days

You make them so short.  At my house,

you never know whether to be sleet or snow. 

If you must come, please bring big snowflakes

that sift over limp grass and then cardinals

will ornament the trees. You ice the deck that the dog

and I have to traverse.  Shrubs succumb to your weight,

never regaining strength to stand erect again. 

And your frost freezes to the windshield like glue.

Do send deep blue skies with sun sparkling off iced

tree limbs to let me know that warmer days are ahead. 

Don’t tease us with the smell of spring only to slam

the door shut with a storm.  Most importantly,

leave as quietly as you came.

Green Hills Literary Lantern   2021