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

Shh, Shh, Shh

The ghosts appeared as they do 

whenever I go to the woods –

Mom and Dad, grandparents,

aunts and uncles, a brother-in-law,

friends, deer, bear, turkey, Europens

and Natives.  All the way back

to that near murder called a sacrifice.

Then back to Abel.  It’s part of the price I 

pay to enter the woods, a jug of wine 

to Charon for their brief reprieve.

They don’t talk much or maybe I don’t.

It’s as if the limitations of words are 

finally accepted; there is something

in their presence that gives a curious

hope I have never been able to name,

the way holding a crying baby next 

to you, rocking softly, whispering,

“shh, shh, shh” calms the child

and you.  I often forget I’ve gone to the woods 

to hunt being haunted by those presences 

holding me next to them.

-Byron Hoot

 hootnhowlpoetry.com 

Not Like Any Other

It is Sunday morning.  I am driving from

The Laurel Highlands through Ligonier

through Derry through Blairsville past

Homer City past Indiana to south 

of Punxsutawney to home.  A little under

 two hours.  My processional, my hymn,

my prayer, my offering, my sermon, communion,

benediction, recessional.  There’s little traffic

as if this morning retains some vestiges

of worship, some sacred, holy scent falling,

rising in the air.  It may edge beyond noon.

Perhaps to the border of Monday.  Perhaps

longer if this unhurried time can be remembered.

It’s as if everyone knows it’s Sunday morning

on these Pennsylvania secondary roads,

villages, towns, hillsides and fields.  Every act

a promise kept without any promise being made.

I got home and entered that sanctuary, the fallen

leaves off my porch like fallen prayers to be answered.

  

-Byron Hoot

 hootnhowlpoetry.com   

Dance Instructor

The black bear was teaching me his dance:

standing on his hind legs,

right foot right, then left, left,

forewards, backwards,

shoulders hunched,

forelegs like arms extended,

claws showing, a huff,

a show of teeth all kept 

in rhythm by the drummer

and the bear said to me,

“Now you.  Just remember 

when you were a bear.”

He started to hum,

then that bearish grin appeared.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com

The Wait

When hunting, I think about the nature

of waiting, how much of my life
is taken by it. How here in the woods
to wait is to hunt and even moving
holds a cautious movement as the ground
holds fallen leaf covered trees, grapevines,
branches, rocks.  Every step a careful waltz
putting me nowhere but where I am.
How if deer appear or not, the sensation
of being where I am is a sacrament.
It enters the blood, that sense of the wild

where now is an eternity and a dance.  Now 

split like a piece of wood revealing the nature
of the grain, which way it goes, how to go with it. 

-Byron Hoot

hootnhowlpoetry.com

The Return

The mists rose from patches of pines

like prayer incense rising, disappearing    

as words thinned and the burden

of the prayers dissolved until there 

was only the scent of pine and the air

was cleared for response.  It took all

day for the answers to appear.  Hours

of driving in the congestion of speed 

and slow downs, of cars and trucks 

and semis feet from front and back

bumpers and then that thinned some 

two hours from home as I drove west

into the grandeur of the sunset –

mauve clouds with gray underlings,

pink patches mixed with wisps 

of white, the sun slipping behind 

the clouds in that evening glow of gold

and felt the answers to the unspeakable

morning prayers and knew I’d soon be home.

-Byron Hoot

hootnhowlpoetry.com!  

Marienstadt

Mary’s Town
That’s what they named it
German Catholics
Promised land that was fertile

Green

Farmland

A place as beautiful and welcoming as their homeland

Instead they found massive hemlocks and white pine

Dense

Dark

Uninhabitable

Unforgiving

But they stayed

Built a church

A brewery

And eventually discovered their future 

In carbon

The people of Marienstadt measured time by the church bells

And the factory whistle

They built tidy houses

And proclaimed that it was

A good life

The little boy was called to the fence that separated

His grandfather’s store

From the factory

Dollars for lunch for these men

He ran back to fetch them food

 

Years later he

Stood in that place 

on Christmas Eve

The store long gone

The factory, mostly empty

And watched the wind carry snow 

across the cracked pavement, 

Bend the tall grass 

that hid the abandoned railroad tracks

He remembered 

his grandmother’s rooms on the second floor

And his mother 

sitting on the porch, 

a beautiful bird perched on her shoulder

By Bekki Titchner