A gray board-&-batten shack in Owyhee
sagebrush in a drizzle no one’s in-
side hasn’t been for years two
empty windows barbed
wire fence strung on weathered splits lining the
ridge southward
What’s anyone else about
at this moment or at this moment
a tanker truck downshifting up an eastbound grade three
Harleys churning a mist on US 95
a stone gray sky
anyone in California anywhere
under a lemon sun or
Pittsburgh under a lemon sun or Bozeman
where I don't know anyone
under a lemon sun there was always a lemon
sun when I tried to look there are
two empty windows framed by gray
boards
a power pole with no wires connecting it
elsewhere the desert
dripping astringent green in this damp May
slate gray sky awash in crows
Jack Hayes
© 2010
[To see other poems in this sequence, please click on the "UP Poems" label]
There's powerful aloneness in this one (even though solitary travel comes up in other poems in this series, this one is alive with aloneenss). The empty windows, the power pole with no connecting wires... all the questions about where everyone is - and I love how it concludes: slate gray sky awash in crows, which is beautiful in language, and I like the thought of the solitary person witnessing the crows' gregariousness.
ReplyDeleteHi HKatz: Thanks for that careful reading--very much appreciated. I do feel perhaps thatI'm "inhabiting" this series more as it builds.
ReplyDeleteAs with its companion pieces, I'm right there under that lemon sun. Such a vivid evocation of landscapes that I have never seen, but have dreamed of so often.
ReplyDeleteHi Dick: Thanks! I very much appreciate your interest in these poems. Not sure exactly where they're leading, but am happy to "go along for the ride" so to speak. Glad other folks are along as well.
ReplyDelete