The Mind in the Wind Seeing Where Things Lie

I am riding the wind, surveying the damage

of the storm as if I’m a bird caught on the wind

currents handed off like a baton in a relay race

whose finish line gets no closer.  I see I am surveying

my life by wind and breeze, by close to the earth,

by above the trees in an instant of time and the perspective

changes.  The damage and what’s left untouched immense.

The reasons for both unknown, the causality for each 

equation unfinished on a blackboard.

This flight is hardly god-like though it suggests an 

omnipresent point-of-view.  I remind myself I am human

regardless of what I see, what I surmise has happened,

what dreams may still come to me.  What I need are nights

of deep sleep; this riding the wind is not as easy 

as it would seem to be.  So often the spirit is broken 

when things are clearly seen.  So often it is made whole.

-Byron Hoot

visit hootnhowlpoetry.com.

Communion

I buy Fig Newtons

occasionally. They 

are a communion

with that time when Mrs. Heinz 

would give them to me when

Dad and Mom, Reverend

and Mrs. Hoot, would call

on her to see how she 

was, to listen, to pray, 

to leave.  And sometimes

half the Fig Newtons would

be eaten by her kids and me.

I’m not certain when I take

a bite I don’t hear, “The body

and blood of life.”  We’d walk

across a wooden bridge over

a small stream to get to the car.

The silence inside 

as we drove away.

-Byron Hoot

http://hootnhowlpoetry.com/

A Sunday Morning

That trap__

Shouldn’t have 

Checked it before heading 

Off to church, but we did.

No groundhog but worse,

A skunk, hind leg clasped

Firmly, stared with beady eyes

As we approached garden’s edge

Standing there in our wool

Suits knowing it inhumane 

To wait, Uncle Ralph said,

Sam, get the gun.

Meaning, of course,

An old Remington 22

By the fireplace_

The double barrel 

Was fetched instead.

Uncle Ralph glanced at his watch,

Shrugged his shoulders,

Reluctantly accepted the shotgun,

Turned, aimed and fired,

We’ll take care of it when we get back

For one eternal hour

Seated in the pews

Of that small church

An uncomfortable congregation 

Imagined the sulfurous 

Stench of hell was upon them….

We feigned innocence,

Knowing it was really upon us.

-Wayne H. Swanger

Spare Me

Spare me encounters

With the self-possessed

That if uninterrupted

Use more ‘I’s’ in conversation

Than can be found

In a two-acre potato patch.

-Wayne H. Swanger

Flying Squirrel

I saw it

As it saw me 

From its pantry 

Hideaway:

A momentary shock,

An uninvited guest, 

An inconvenient mutuality,

Co-inhabitants of faded grandeur 

Amidst the forest

Finally, face-to-face,

Simultaneous recognition,

Suspense suspended,

Both of us finally knowing

The source of those

Strange, nocturnal sounds

-Wayne H. Swanger

Memory Lane

                         I

Light snow, the temperature at freezing,

a breeze moving the outermost tips

of branches.  I sit inside.  I look out 

to see in like a sorceress casting bones

to read the time not yet here arising 

from the past.  There are days for remembering

and days for not remembering.  Like the scales

of Justice, who knows how they are balanced.

The light is up, the sun hidden.  “Like memories,”

I say, reach for my coffee, look outside

again wondering where I’ve put my talisman. 

                         II

Who has not felt that treble hook

of the past sink into a moment, drag you back 

into the vortex of what was and then that sense

of drowning?  And who has not escaped?

Sputtering, fighting for air, saying,

"Never again!"  finding a pearl in the center

of your fist.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com

Rain Crow

At times she wondered how it all would end

even after she must have known it was ended.

Sometimes when the wind blew, bringing rain again,

she cast her dreams aside and flew herself away.

Some say she lived alone against the dark side of the mountain; 

some say her madness came from what she knew of flying.

But she always cried before the rain began,

from the darkness and the broken heart and the fever of dying. 

I heard the rain crow just before a cold rain swept

down from shadows and across the cold gray morning.

A chill was in the air and the rain crow’s song sailed,

lost and lonely and full of old dreams, like a bird’s wings

touched by mist and magic and dark dreams folding.

Some say she kept her secrets, alone across the forest unforgiving.

Some say she calls the rain, she calls the rain, 

from her own soul to cool the madness and the fever of living.

-Ramey Channell

Appalachian Spring: A Morning Rhapsody

I silently slip out

Into the grayness,

Night chill lingers

In dawn’s dew

World awakens;

Clearing its throat 

With tentative chips and calls,

Stirrings on branch, in field

Alert, I watch… listen,

A crescendo of radiance

And sound inexorably bound,

Spontaneous rhapsody

Of light and melodies

Voices swell,

Birdsong at sunrise, 

A fitting encomium

To this spring morning

-Wayne H. Swanger

Road Closed

I kept the radio on a sport’s talk station

because I did not want to hear 

the conversations the drive was ready

to give if I gave silence and the way

home a chance to collaborate.

I couldn’t take that collective voice 

of longing and desire creating poetry 

whose purpose was to turn the car around

and drive back as if I could enter the past

by a different route without reading a sign

that read, Road Closed.  That is the seduction

of the past – to find a road back.

I’ve driven enough to know that the unknown 

is the only road with certainty, the one 

“that goes on forever” revealing hidden beauty

and treasure and love.  Still, I kept

the station on until I was out of range

and had to face my dreams and memories.

The hum of the tires like a powerful chant 

keeping me from turning back.

-Byron Hoot

hootnhowlpoetry.com   

Just Sayin’

It may be the blood of the lamb washes 

away sins but I’ve heard too many 

testimonies where the details of the sins

were stated with an outlaw pride 

and sense of regret for days gone by.

There’s something about singing honkey-tonk 

in a honkey-tonk that can’t stay out 

of hymns, gospel music an equivalent

to smoke-filled rooms, the low growl 

of a bass, the moan of piano keys,

the liquid voices of barroom angels.

The power of love that changes the world.

No, I’ve heard and seen too many testimonies

end in “praise God” uncertain what 

the praise was for.

-Byron Hoot

http://hootnhowlpoetry.com/

Winter Entering Time

I cannot see the nearly black trunk and branches
of the trees yet.  I know they are there in my front
yard, on the hillsides.  Know the winter solstice 
is over.  Know the trees have heard the whisper
of winter entering time and know the whisper
of its departure the heartwood of each tree
has memorized.  I cast my restlessness to them
like prayers in a sanctuary where miracles occur.
I have no doubt they will be answered just not
immediately.  We both know the nature of prayers,
how long it takes for them to penetrate, how long 
it takes for the first leaves of spring to show.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com