July 2017
Frederick Wilbur
fcwilbur@verizon.net
fcwilbur@verizon.net
I was brought up and still live in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia so I rely on imagery derived from the natural landscape to explore human relationships. My wife, Elizabeth, and I have two daughters and three grandchildren. I have been an architectural woodcarver for over 35 years and have written numerous articles and three books on the subject. My poems are forthcoming in Able Muse, The Chariton Review, Plainsongs, Poetry Quarterly, and Snowy Egret among others.
The Loneliness of Destiny Road
This X shows you where you are,
but be skeptical of the map’s conventions--
nervous rivers, scattered squares
that could be buildings.
Don’t trust the cartouche that purports
to clarify the flat tease of ink.
All you need take are napkins for lions,
blue-ribbon verbs and their girlfriends.
Pack a prank or two in your pocket
for circumstances unforeseen.
Chose a road of any color, any true arrow,
and when in doubt, turn left or away
from your shadow, whichever comes first.
By no means tarry under the dreamer’s tree--
without craft there is no art.
Be prepared for parables from strangers
that make peace with your fears,
that make unknowns disappear evenly.
There may be words on laughing back porches,
there may be puzzlements, there may be . . .
O, all right, take my hand against happenstance,
I’ll show you the way.
To a Chestnut, Dead
Searching among mountain grays, greens
for the thick brown of the chestnut
that last winter I swore lives--
a profusion of twigs reaching for a clear sky.
Now the forest hurries toward summer
so I wager a sweaty hike through gauntlets
of brambles for that belief, to prove
it still inspires reverence.
The furrowed trunk
beyond the stewardship of man,
stands in a sunlit clearing.
The shade of outstretched vultures
is a darkness only survivors know.
Shadowed, I sit in the debris
of seasonal revisions,
in the leafless elegy that brings
poetry to silence.
This X shows you where you are,
but be skeptical of the map’s conventions--
nervous rivers, scattered squares
that could be buildings.
Don’t trust the cartouche that purports
to clarify the flat tease of ink.
All you need take are napkins for lions,
blue-ribbon verbs and their girlfriends.
Pack a prank or two in your pocket
for circumstances unforeseen.
Chose a road of any color, any true arrow,
and when in doubt, turn left or away
from your shadow, whichever comes first.
By no means tarry under the dreamer’s tree--
without craft there is no art.
Be prepared for parables from strangers
that make peace with your fears,
that make unknowns disappear evenly.
There may be words on laughing back porches,
there may be puzzlements, there may be . . .
O, all right, take my hand against happenstance,
I’ll show you the way.
To a Chestnut, Dead
Searching among mountain grays, greens
for the thick brown of the chestnut
that last winter I swore lives--
a profusion of twigs reaching for a clear sky.
Now the forest hurries toward summer
so I wager a sweaty hike through gauntlets
of brambles for that belief, to prove
it still inspires reverence.
The furrowed trunk
beyond the stewardship of man,
stands in a sunlit clearing.
The shade of outstretched vultures
is a darkness only survivors know.
Shadowed, I sit in the debris
of seasonal revisions,
in the leafless elegy that brings
poetry to silence.
© 2017 Frederick Wilbur
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