Afton Mountain Piper

A warm summer day and the downhill run 

from Staunton home, and there he stood

in Highland array at the overlook, 

bag full and chanter to his lips.

A private moment, it seemed,

else we would have stopped

to listen, perhaps to chat

if he had a mind to.

But he was intent on his piping, 

facing east across the valley—

piping, one might think,

to immigrant family

who settled these hills,

tracing in his mind an unseen path

from a lowland port westward

among the glens and across these icy streams.

A mountain people before they came,

born in rocky crags stretching beneath the sea

to these selfsame Appalachian hills—

now home in ways they knew and didn’t know.

And what of this does the piper ken?

Does he pipe back two hundred years

to an ancestor Barclay or Black,

McLean or McIntosh, who built here and farmed

the land below?

Or does something stir deeper in his blood

tying him to another place and time,

and so he stands today on a new Afton

far, far this side of home, 

oblivious to the interstate

and growl of traffic and curious stares,

as alone as a man can be heart-deep among his kin,

piping to a distant land?

              © David Black, 2015

Bagpiper at Loch Garry
Photo by Bleiglass
from Wikimedia Commons

The Road

In the dark

I drive over timeless mountains.

The sky exposes herself to me

In falling starlight and dreamy wisps

Of moonlight.

The road unfolds before me,

Telling a story I discover in each moment.

I know the path well.

I have driven here before,

Finding your love again and again throughout time.

In pauses between conversations with strangers I call friends;

In the quiet of night when only the insects speak to me,

My mind wanders back to you.

In these day dreams,

The timeless mountains become the curl of your hair

Over my naked arm while you sleep.

The night sky and the dreamy wisps of moonlight

Become the remembered depth of your eyes

With the pale reflection of me in their earthy circumference.

In these moments

The stars tell stories of constellations

We have not yet imagined.

The story of us is born again ceaselessly from the same source,

And the road is the pathway between our hearts.

© Fergus Clare, 2014

Narrow road leading to Paranal Observatory
Atacama Desert, Chile
Photo by Julien Girard, an astronomer for ESA

Look in My Window

               So, look in my window.  Stare at me.  Mock me.

What do you think you see?

A white haired woman standing by the counter, cooking?

I hear you thinking, "Why does she stand there,

day after day, just cooking, cooking?

She's alone, who the hell will eat all that food?"

Might you, peeking in my window, see more than this chopping old fool?

Might you think, "There's a person who wants to be useful."

It is painful when you are more than the world wants.

Energy imploding, cells discouraged from replicating,

wrinkles manifest like uncooked ramen noodles.

It is a fact of this world that we must fight to be visible, useful, appreciated,

as the years pile up like chicken bones tossed in the grass after a picnic.

Fight.  What a word...

In aging, who wants to fight?

You, in the window, why don't you turn away?  What's the fascination?

Could you possibly be thinking that I have something to give you?

I could make you laugh; I could make you cry; I could make you think;

I could feed you.

You think I am used up, but you don't understand:  I want to be used up -

when I can't light the oven anymore.

Big pots of soup, whole baked chickens, yeasty loaves of bread,

gallon jars of kim chee, cookie sheets of roasted apples and peaches.

© Evie Safran, 2015

"Peasant Woman Cooking by a Fireplace"
Vincent van Gogh, 1885
Metropolitan Museum of Art
from Wikimedia Commons

Old Appliances

Once upon a time,

When I was very young,

I looked upon my avocado colored appliances

   with joyful pride.

My shiny refrigerator, so "avante garde,"

Brightening my kitchen with a light

That reflected on to the same color oven door

Where I baked the children's cookies.

But moving took me away from the kitchen set,

Gave me instead an old Sub Zero that smiled 

With its gleeful huge wood-paneled door.

And though quite old,

It happily substituted for the shiny avocado one,

Doing its job while plodding away for 20 years and more

As I refused to part with

One who had morphed into

An old friend,  

Reliably ready when the children

Reached inside for their after school snack

Of milk and cookies.

Gone are those days of dependably seeing the children.

Fragmented memories remain,

Like those of the old Sub Zero,

Replaced now with jet black GE's,

A matching set taking on the role,

No children's fingerprints to mar their glaze.

They stand alone… waiting. 

© Shelly Sitzer, 2015

"Landscape with Refrigerators"
Painting by Kida Kinjiro
from Wikimedia Commons

Only Love

HOW GOOD IT IS 

TO STOP BESIDE THE WATER’S EDGE!

I CAN’T FEEL WHAT DAY THIS IS!

I ONLY KNOW THE SUN UPON MY FACE

AND THAT EVERY TIME I RETURN TO THIS PLACE,

RIVER LOW OR HIGH, 

I AM ONLY I!

BARBED WIRE HAS BEEN DEVOURED 

BY THIS RIVER TREE --

WILL IT BE SO WITH OLD BOUNDARIES AND ME?

WILL IT BE SO WITH OLD ANGER?

ONLY LOVE SHOULD BE GUARANTEED

THE HONOR OF ETERNITY ----

NOTHING ELSE COULD MATTER!

© Gerry Sackett, 2015

Beside the Water's Edge
Photo by Tony Russell