In the last moments of darkness,
I drive east on Fifty-Four.
Wary of crossing deer,
I slow down to forty.
The landscape eerily haunted
With skeleton fingers and arms
Of birch branches that loom so close
They might tap on my window.
I drive the next six miles like this,
Then bear left for the ramp
To the Goldstar Highway
Just as the sun, all coppery,
Creeps atop the mountain
And lays out the morning,
before me,
Like a promise.
Backyard Poems
The Rabbit
Ambrosia, Angelica,
Anise,
silver artemisia;
Chamomile, Coreander,
Comfrey
and golden calendula.
From beneath the empty old house,
The baby rabbit
Left the soft comfort of his rabbit hole
And entered the forgotten garden,
A wilderness of wild, lush delights.
Backyard Poems
The Chipmunk
The simple centaur
Guard of the keep,
Watching over the marchland,
Fending fence rails
Sitting picket on posts,
Small, yet watchful,
A conjurer in camouflage
His black stripe
Like a paint stroke
Upon the rail,
Now you see him,
Now you don’t,
Marching paling by paling
Patrolling his palisade
Joan’s Poems
Evening Poem
by Joan Farrell
By evening, I shall be rain
Pouring down from black clouds
Lashing roofs,
And with my brother the wind,
I will pull leaves
Toss branches
Scatter petals
Caress stones
Taste birch bark
And stroke children’s cheeks
Pool into jumping puddles
And make oil slicked rainbows.
Then I’ll summon my brother Thunder
And we’ll race after our brother Lightning
Who’s off playing tag with the earth
And we’ll speed about
Into the night
To wake up children,
sleeping dogs,
and fawns
in the forest
And I will be laughing
and laughing,
And you will hear that laugh,
And know it was me
And whisper a sigh,
Tag it with my name
And send it out into the nite.
Crow Poem
by Joan Farrell
This morning while I slept,
and brushed a dream
into a dim corner of my mind,
a pair of crows
clapped their strong wings
and sped into my consciousness
with a swift, wild eagerness
for the sun to rise.
Their clear calls rose, fell,
echoed between me
and the first morning light
coming into my window
on the edge of a new day;
and it didn’t matter where I was
on that perfectly cold morning;
instead,
i was perched in black plumage
at the bottom of a mountain,
balanced on a white birch bough,
bending into the dawn,
listening waiting.
