Killdeer Farm, at midnight, I bellied an open bay
window. Its ledge mentioned the pounds I've earned,
and for a second I lost self-esteem. A foul wind came up,
did ungodly things to me; open my top, rubbed me a bit with
cold feet, gave wings to linens on a line. The lights
were gray, the darks were dressed in night. I heard them,
their wings flopping, they could not go free. I saw the cruelty,
I did not say a word. I was afraid of letting bugs
into my mouth. To the west, the cornfields were null and void;
their darkness was upon the face of the deep, but when
my mind rushed me toward a bad conclusion, I told myself,
Lancaster is a triangle with three different sides. I saw
House Rock Road, Pequea & Chickies Hill on Route 441
looking toward Columbia. It was there I laughed boisterously
without the fear of bugs passing close to the realm of my lips.
Pennslyvania is my Pennslyvania & your Pennslyvania.
Categories:
killdeer, nostalgia, travel, vacation,
Form: Free verse
Rain
By: Tom Wright
3/20/2006
The grass that was has disappeared
And a killdeer has lost its legs.
The squirrel that buried fall’s pecans
Is now stranded atree and begs.
The noises of frogs now fill the air
No happier time for one to be.
The weatherman tells me that soon
Water will be up to my knee.
Categories:
killdeer, nature, water, weather,
Form: Lyric
Unleashed as if it were night
small stones, taking flight
pelting darkness, felt all along
clouding even the sweetest song
killdeer calls alarm contentment
eyes close and air runs
breathless your bruise
stabbing inside
drips of pain rearrange plans
pleading, so pleading
to surrender
white flags raise
wanting--
to be wiped away
along with the black
Categories:
killdeer, anxiety, dark,
Form: Free verse
The sea gathered her voice
on the crest of the waves
as dark clouds were herded
by the wind as he raved
in a symphony orchestrated
through elements of sound
composed by the air
from his drafty compound.
By the drum of the surf
on the beat of the waves
a crescendo that climbed
with the sea as she raged
while the wind as the maestro
pulled pockets of sound
from the whistles and moans
as he swept ‘cross the ground.
Soprano! cried the killdeer
Tenor! screeched the gulls
as a baritone foghorn
boomed from the hull
of a ship that swayed
drunkenly atop of the surf
staying clear of the breakers
that crashed on the turf
The ship creaked a response
as it groaned a refrain
but the deft hand of a shipwright
would keep it sustained
for he’d hewn and he’d whittled
great emblems of love
carving an angel for the figurehead
and atop the masthead, a dove.
When the wind stopped his jostling
and the sea spent her ire
the ship slipped back to its haven
of warm hearths and bright fires
where the men mused and wondered
over great tankards of ale
if the hymns and hosannas..
had been but, the wind in the sails?
Categories:
killdeer, dedication, faith, imagination, sea,
Form: Ode
alarm!!
rise up take flight
killdeer cry
Categories:
killdeer, angst, imagination, nature,
Form: Haiku
Deer linger in the bitterbrush
Below the gambel oak—
The brittle fern shows no concern
For killdeer or cowpoke.
The miner’s candle lights our way
Now lost in limber pine—
The water birch does not besmirch
Beargrass at timberline.
Sky pilots bend on mountain side
Dark as the black hawthorn—
A horned lark rests on the ninebark—
Between the two we’re torn.
We journey south through water oak,
Coral bean, supple jack—
We ride beneath magnolia leaf
And miss not what we lack.
A canebrake rattler comes too close,
Like death in the sweet bay—
Chinaberry makes us tarry
This oleander day.
Categories:
killdeer, cowboy-western, imagination, introspection, nature,
Form: Cowboy Poetry