‘Across Daughette’s Meadow’, ‘Bluetick Evening’ & ‘Crow Song*’
Alfonso Keller-Casielles
Across Daughette’s Meadow
Up to my shins stepping gingerly over the grass,
Eyes half-consciously watching the terrain, my
Psyche on autopilot as it mostly is.
Behind me houses of the great and good
Fronting Pelham Road, with this field behind
Them, unguarded, my natural shortcut.
Another time there will be wildflowers and the
Occasional honeysuckle vine, each blossom
Waiting to have its golden drop sucked out.
Now all is dun-colored grass, brown leaves
On pecan trees. But I’m not affected. I’m
Unlikely to be diverted on my way
Toward sixth street, where wait brother
Dogs cats books magazines football. At
School I am engaged, obliged to think.
Yet now, moving through the bleak commons
I anticipate only the weave of
Familiar voices, texture of well-worn
Sensations, comforts of the small eternity
Fixed beneath this bubble of modernity.
Bluetick Evening
Through the patch of brush
To the back gate, nose under latch.
Toss back the head—on to commune with the
Children one street over.
Circulating the coldest nose, wagging with
Circumspect sympathy and wild-
Creature discretion, always on
Watch for stragglers, checking that the
Wolves who populate his mythology are nowhere near—
Yet even so he’ll sniff and
Snuff where the willynilly play of the child pack
Meets the circling foliage, full with its
Myriad odors. Tonight it chances that after
Many reads of the hedge he finds no
Scent of peril. When the children are
Called in, he turns, trots, and instantly appears—
By coonhound magic! at his own back door,
Commenting on his famished hunger and the evening
Chill—making strong music, and then with happy
Whines gulping down what the Goddess brings.
Crow Song*
An old feeling de novo, one
Simply implicit in life, but tumbling-
Trembling that it should once more
Take hold, not so much
Taking harsh because it’s too familiar—still
Thereby with a greater expectation
That it will endure.
November, and that same
Ol’ Raven lit upon Pallas’
Bust, voted 100 times (no less) the
Bird and likeness most likely to
Mirror mistrust. Maybe this time
It’ll stay: Perched, a fable in
Sable, on this dark plutonian shore,
Cawing its bad news
Evermore.
*Written after the 2024 elections.
Paul Pruitt is a law librarian by trade, an historian by training, and a writer by compulsion. He writes poetry in order to experience, over and over, the wonder of words colliding. His publications include poems in Literary Heist, In Parenthesis, Triggerfish Critical Review, The Dillydoun Review, and the Birmingham Arts Journal.
