Before I wrote poetry, I wrote songs. This one took several months from
inception to product; that's why I took to writing poetry.
mp3: (I'm not an engineer - headphones strongly recommended.) A Place to Stay
A lifetime of hayfield
turns fallow when
he forgets to ask
the neighbours’ help.
The heifers miss
the twinkle of his
injured eye, the
fractured tooth,
the fidget. The
fields roll and roll,
as always, the bailer
follows
the rake follows
the mower. We
once followed too,
the heft of bails
in July, and Fern’s
meals.
How strange we must
have felt
to him, our frivolous
degrees and
the fever of winter
cabin fires.
Blow the beaver
dam, he showed
us how, sheer the
ram and take his
balls for breakfast.
Laughed when
we thought too much
about it.
He wasn’t much for
talk; still,
we knew him, by
his easy smile,
the small hello,
the offered hand,
the willingness
for work to shuffle
to a stop, just
to stand there.
Five words would
seal a deal, our labour
for his lumber,
our homes impossible
without him. His
the horse that raised
the logs, his the
wood that planked
the floor. He works
them still, the mill,
the hills, but tales
repeat themselves,
and memories flee
like weather.
The Shelley Road
is less than fertile
now, the visits
rare, the daughters
grown far from the
farm. He fades
like straw, furrowed
and sodden with
rain and the bleach
of few fine days.
