Migrants’ stopover
Jun 23rd, 2010 | By Rodney Nelson | Category: Poetry | 1000 viewshigh mild north wind had been around
the county taking leaf and as
I walked in where the hilly drive
had use to go I did not think
to see any at the onetime
farmstead
no blowing today and
an easy ocher light even
toward noon on faded tall-grass
acreage that dropped away to
the grove he had lived in
I heard
them at the time I saw the one
gold height of a poplar among
naked oak next to an only
remembered garden site
a black-
bird shivaree
red-wing
Brewer’s
cowbird and grackle
out of that
direction though I did not quite
get what they were until I had
edged up in the underwood and
unkept woods they had set all in
motion
a migrant-flock music
a day stopover
at what the
old man had given them
workmen
had come to remove
the last mark
of him but a rusty pail and
a crock shard
no motion around
just quiet and late October
and my father might have liked this
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About mamelund: Rodney Nelson's poetry began appearing in mainstream literary journals, e.g., Georgia Review, long ago: but he turned to fiction and did not write a poem for twenty-two years, restarting during this century. There is an entry in the Poets & Writers directory with an outline of the publishing history. He has worked as a book and copy editor and lives in the American Great Plains. |
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