Sandburg Home

In the evenings we sit on the back porch and listen
to the semis carrying Christmas toys
that will be trundled into a closet and buried
beneath that one unmatched sock and a torn
Pink Floyd T-shirt that was cool last year.

We hear the Puerto Rican street racers
in their matchbox Civics winding out gears
always shifting and dying too soon, too soon

We watch planes on their wide circling
loops of approach; gorged stars that twinkle
red, white, red, white —
no jazz in their rhythm at all.

We see the orange glow of the city
a dreamsicle sky that never melts,
only keeps the constellations behind
Cassiopeia hidden in the haze.

And we think about Sandburg’s
house in North Carolina,
the sweep of the long grass away
from the porch, into that silent
hollow, where small white
wildflowers clot the land
and one early cricket
bleats, bleats, bleats
from under a dogwood tree.

© Jilly’s  All Rights Reserved

Day 15 November Poem-A-Day personal challenge

 

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