The train rolls the past behind me.
Necklaces of small towns are left for worse.
A child waves hello or goodbye. 
Giving an inch takes another mile.
A collage of hills and factories head to eternity.
People are drawing smiles on their faces.
The names of the guilty are changed.
We are always about to arrive and depart, 
but our calculations seldom add up to results.
Whatever we were thinking lags far behind.
                        

	“Tis a gift to be simple” — Shaker hymn

cows migrate towards a milking pail
they are Grandfather’s clock as a farmer
whispers of light show him
pulling on his boots
heading out

he opens the gate
where he once met his wife
separated by the gate
shutting out temptation

these are all simple things
touching a forbidden hand
pulling fistfuls of milk into a wooden bucket
things any man can understand

everything else moves too quickly
misunderstood
and mysterious as restless petticoats

better to bend time
to the slowest of minutes 
it is simpler that way

let other people feel the barometer of their hearts
he tends to the deliberate
slow as night
as his wife shakes laundry off the line

this was how he felt
when he opened that gate
and she slipped through the first time
his hand tumbling into hers
he crowed the morning