December 2020
Peter Jastermsky
peterjastermsky@gmail.com
Bio Note: I live with my family in the high desert of Southern California and the amazing landscape and desert characters (human and animal!) are what inspire me most. I'm a haiku-based poet and I've published five books, most recently, The Silence We Came For (cherita), and Tyranny of the Familiar (haiga), co-authored with Tiffany Shaw Diaz, both available from Yavanika Press, yavanikapress.wixsite.com

Testament
Watching their thoughts fan out for miles, we decide that the old ones choose not to speak. Their wish for a quiet neatness holds what they no longer possess for themselves.

where to place
the commas
old friends

We imagine these old ones, being old, no longer notice this rough trail edge. Their shoes appear weighty, like monuments that have nicked these paths for miles, still inches short of somewhere.

circling the pond
all the memories
untangle

The old one’s impressions no longer consist of manageable activity. In place of virtue grows a silence, one that carries them deep, without depth.

the time it takes
to snuff a candle
last wish
Originally published in Shamrock Haiku Journal, June, 2017

Whatever’s at Hand
So rare to see them up close: leaves, bark, and sticks. Bits of twine and cloth. In vernacular architecture, one works with whatever’s at hand. As with homesteaders, so, too, with birds. A rough home constructed, so the next generation may take flight.

farmhouse cellar—
remembering what family
feels like
Originally published in Atkitsu Journal, Summer 2018
©2020 Peter Jastermsky
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to tell him or her. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is the beginning of community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -JL