September 2022
Author's Note: Scouring the poems I'd like to see published that have anything to do with a theme of harvest, I found these. Not very positive choices, but nevertheless, relevant, at least to my own octogenarian way of thinking. The first is a true tale, the second a sentimental if meaningful ritual of the house.
Replenishment
Out back on public land
the men stock up on pheasants
at just this time of year,
a task I find unpleasant
to contemplate. They fear—
the hunters—that demand
will not be met this fall.
They won’t have birds to shoot,
the thrill of stalking prey,
the man in hot pursuit,
the pointer pointing the way.
It doesn’t seem fair at all.
Last year, a pheasant found
a path to a kinder place,
our neighborhood. We fed
a widowed bird. He paced
from door to door, then died
beside the road on ground
he’d made his own. We miss
him to this day, his honk,
the pacing of our yards,
the trust he put in us.
A pheasant’s happy life’s
not in the cards.
Before We Drive Away
This stubborn habit that we have
before we drive away,
to seek the other’s eye and wave
briefly, without display
acknowledges how moments hold
the future fast like fists,
the day that one of us is told
a final day insists.
Make habit place us both in view
to catch the other’s eye,
lest, absent minded, I—or you—
forget to say goodbye.
©2022 Donald Wheelock
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