Smokey
and the Lost Boy
Drowsy,
late summer afternoon, my brother David followed
his
cat Smokey into the woods behind our old white house.
He
was two or three, woke early from his nap, tottered off
while
my mother slept on, brook murmuring and whispering.
He
followed Smokey out over stone and through the pine grove
past
tall spindly grasses and into the blackberries, sometimes
wobbling,
falling; sometimes crawling where prickers grabbed
at
his hand-made sweater, tugged his cuff.
Above
him brambles bent in long arcs, heavy with dark fruit,
and
David, my brother went through them all, a little human
croquet
ball, his sweater striped like the wooden post
that
is your final croquet destination.
Smokey
stretched out on the moss and slept, a white cat
with
a grey spot on his belly, a puff of smoke,
from
which his name floated, his belly a pillow, his purr
a
small lullaby for a boy in the brambles.
--Rick Agran
For kids he wrote a book, Pumpkin
Shivaree (Handprint Books) and his poems in Crow Milk
(Oyster River Press) got read by Garrison Keillor
Inventory
of nests
I
have begun an inventory of nests.
The
clear light of morning is hardly ever clear.
2
lives are better than none
right?
Frostlines
retreating midfield follow shadows to an undefined edge.
Who
ever told you there is no danger?
Fathers
& mothers do not have all the answers.
Be
tough.
Stay
warm.
--Erro
Ruttila
Erro hosts a poetry festival in his greenhouse near the Merrimac
River.
