THROUGH THE HEARTLAND

We waited for good news to come from
down the road, somehow we knew
what was coming was good. But fidelity
to the wrong god changed everything.
Closing our eyes to the sky, it didn’t take long.

Each breath is different now.
I could only understand my own blindness
through someone else’s turmoil. Quite how
my silence contaminated everything,
I can’t decide.

We have our house and rhododendrons,
bellies full of warm food and our bed.
We have our means, but there’s a coldness
that permeates our paper thin walls,
it won’t leave us alone.

Everybody has their mile—
windmills and sunflowers, shutting down
a machine that has lasted for generations,
our lives will not be the same.
There are only glimpses, murmurs on the wind—
sometimes the mile is so long.

I paused on the side of that road; I could just
continue along all the way to the far edge,
and try to be of good heart.

(October 2009)