Spare, Time

[rejectomorph]

Bright and cold, the day exposed pale blue sky veined by bare oak limbs. Dusk brought fresh clouds and a line of red light that hovered over the valley, slowly fading. The half moon was hazy for a while, then no more than a bright spot amid the rumpling darkness the sky became. Any belated meteors will be hidden tonight. There could be rain again. I might go for a short walk just to hear my footsteps scrape the pavement. I'll have no shadow, but the faint echo will keep me company.



Sunday Verse

Make Big Money At Home!
Write Poems In Spare Time!

by Howard Nemerov


Oliver wanted to write about reality.
He sat before a wooden table,
He poised his wooden pencil
Above his pad of wooden paper,
And attempted to think about agony
And history, and the meaning of history,
And all stuff like that there.

Suddenly this wooden thought got into his head:
A Tree. That's all, no more than that,
Just one tree, not even a note
As to whether it was deciduous
Or evergreen, or even where it stood.
Still, because it came unbidden,
It was inspiration, and had to be dealt with.

Oliver hoped that this particular tree
Would turn out to be fashionable,
The axle of the universe, maybe,
Or some other mythologically
Respectable tree-contraption
With dryads, or having to do
With the knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Fall.

"A Tree," he wrote down with his wooden pencil
Upon his pad of wooden paper
Supported by the wooden table.
And while he sat there waiting
For what would come next to come next,
The whole wooden house began to become
Silent, particularly silent, sinisterly so.