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

 

The Affect

There is a destination to arrive at on Thursday

and that affects what I will do today.

The argument could be made there’s always

a destination affecting today.

And that would be true, perhaps even right

the way a stride demands two steps 

going in the same direction.  The car is clean,

filled up with gas.  The packing waiting 

for me and the list in my mind to be checked off

when I put the duffel bag in the car.

I’m thinking about what time to leave,

how far I want to drive, the finishing off

of the trip after a night in some motel

with no reservation made.  I have not been

where I’m going for a long time; there are 

few returns I make – today turning into                                                   

tomorrow enough of a return for me.

I am almost ready to leave.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com

And Still

"There is no end to imagining. . .. 

Or to wondering at superfluous 

beauty. . . A world of words could

not describe this wordless world."

Wendell Berry, A Small Porch,, #14

. . . and yet we write and read 

and listen.  The world is words

insufficient and our urge 

to find the right ones in the right

order like confessing our sins

week after week absolved,

given our penance and hope.

This may be the divine mystery:

our refusal damnation. 

our acceptance salvation, 

grace -- the world of paradox

we live in.

-Byron Hoot

hootnhowlpoetry.com.

A Tale

It’s 9:30.  My car and another

in the parking lot.  Someone 

with a cell phone on, that light

not reaching that face.  One, two

cars on the street.  The stop lights

and their dogged rhythm and my 

obedience to them when the sign

No Turn On Red means nothing.

I wait for the green light.  The near

empty road out of town, 

the lights receding in the rearview

mirrors and one Amish

buggy going my way I slow down 

to pass.  Then turn off onto an unmarked

road with fields of corn and soy beans 

and woods at the edge of the road 

watching for deer and bear.

My lights strike one of those yellow

signs with the symbol of a curve 

and the bright reflection blinding me

for a second or two as I hold the steering wheel,

feel the tires on the road, remember where

I am until the blindness passes.

I am struck by that moment of faith I 

had to take.  Disconcerted trying to 

recall how many times I’ve had

to hold on not seeing where I was 

going yet not driving off the road,

the one in front of me,

the one inside me, the one taking me home.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com