It may have been the last time that I’d ever
visit the house where I had lived between
eleven years old and something like eighteen.
Beyond the housing plan, the ridges never
seemed a better metaphor or measure
for the inability of things to mean
anything but what they literally mean.
My dog engaged in some houndish endeavor.
There was a hawk. There was a goldfinch, green
with winter. Mom and Dad have bought a place
in the city. I can still remember when
my brother, who is dead, and I would race
through the woods behind the yard. The woods have seen
nothing. The trees are trees and not young men.
Jacob Bacharach 
Yer handlin’ them enjambments and substitutions like yer some kind of pro or somethin’ …
Thank you for this piece of loveliness.
Beautiful.
the ridges never
seemed a better metaphor or measure
for the inability of things to mean
anything but what they literally mean.
Yes. Thank you.
May your memories be a blessing to you!
I love how you kind of break the fourth wall in the last line there.
Sharp observations. Especially like the seeing the green under the dusty gray the goldfinches put on this time of year.
Uniontown is such a different landscape from the Pittsburgh industrial sprawl just over the horizon, too.
Evocative words. Felt like I was taking the walk with you and your dog. Congratulations on being freshly pressed too 🙂
I like the reverse personification of the trees in the end. It is simple yet powerful.
Great observations.
My dogs would take care of those flying disks for you!!
Congrats on getting pressed!!
those finches, wild canaries in Penn’s Eastern Sylvania, they certainly captured my soul in my childhood there, along with the pheasants, a wee person’s person’s peacock and potential dinner.
the second “person’s” was unintentional, sigh, if I could only have stated it ….face to face, soul to soul ….
Lovely.
Truly.
Lovely.
In my poetry conspiracy we have a highly technical, profoundly intellectual phrase we use to mark poems like this: “fuck, yes.” Fantastic–and that’s from one Westsylvanian to another. Thanks.
very nice. you inspired me to write one about walking my dog as well. walking a dog is purdy good as life medicine.
Reblogged this on The magic of writing and commented:
Beautiful. Touches the heart!