Damascus

The sun has long since left the Gap; the road, pines, and ancient wrinkled houses are left together in a wind-tossed tumult of grey. Inside, the misting windshield. If a heart throbs behind these black windows, it’s muffled beneath the blanket of kudzu that the South has wrought about her, ever-mindful of winter. The only sound is that of the engine, working to demystify the windows and lead me through the Gap.

We are led to long days spent mere feet above a speeding highway, winding through the Carolinas, years ago; how the golden meadows between the northbound and southbound lanes of Interstate 26 inevitably turn to grey, then black, only illumined by oncoming headlights. The hum of another engine, and the popping of acorns as we pull into a driveway; Mom and Dad speak softly, so as not to wake us, the children. We pull the blanket tighter – a blanket of knowledge (or is it ignorance? How confused we are these days!) We look out over the world from an overpass, knowing all its workings; like a flea knows of the bonds and bounds of gravity.

How often do we long for that blanket now, however full of holes? Then at least could we face the night. Now, if not for heartbeats hidden in these houses, we would be lost in the blackening grey, wandering beneath the kudzu blanket.

Walk in the Morning Rain

An archer steps still to the edge of the ferns;

arrowheads barely piercing the mist.

It is a silent moment when a heart stops beating.

Ferns dip their head in quiet assent, while

the mist falls disinterestedly on.

 

We retrace the archer’s steps as the days pass.

We run our fingers along the papery bark

of the evergreens, remembering.

 

Songless sparrows look on as we plunge

our hands into the wet soil where she last lay,

hoping to feel her last heartbeat.

Hoping to hear the last melody of our

Godforsaken siren.

And still the ferns creep closer to her grave.