LAMP ~

Lamp

After supper

No longer summer

A windy night ahead

We sit in the kitchen

One lamp

Read before the fire

Nothing else in our lives

Boots drying

Rain on the windows

Finding Open Water

There are these things

That make lovely creatures

More lovely —

A red-tailed hawk sweeps

From one moment of the hillside

To another

Rising mist will not lose him

  

3 deer wade into the shoulder of a field

They feel safe in the holler of rain

Then you, rolling up your pants

Before a bicycle ride

Your hair just touching the ground

I tell you I will do something with that

Your smile makes the beginning of all this

Loss

Put no trust in nothing, not even yourself

Yesterday was like summer, today snow blows

I’ve walked six miles with an axe and wedge

Actually make my living near a river running bright water

Home to a small hawk found mangled in the woodshed

Eyes opening, I load my rifle but won’t use it

Instead talk with the closest thing to me right now

Heavy gloves moving back short feathers

The break in its neck, claws no use, eyes closing

Rope of Bells

It is the

Rope of bells

You have put behind the door

That let me know

Whenever one of us goes

To the privy

The woodshed

The outdoors

Lovely

 

 
 

 _____________________

Bob Arnold
some of these poems were first published in
Rope of Bells
CHERRY VALLEY EDITIONS