The break wasn’t a sound, not really.
It was more the way a fence post gives way
after years of leaning into the wet wind,
a slow, settled surrender to the earth’s heavy pull that no one bothers to watch.
She left the gate swinging wide,
and I suppose that’s where the dust got in.
It’s the hollow of a fire gone out,
stark as a white stone in a dry sky,
unyielding as the granite we used to stack
to keep the field from the garden.
I went out today to check the timber.
The young trees are still bent from last year’s storm,
white ribs bowing over the black dirt,
refusing to stand straight even now that the air is still.
They’ve learned the shape of the weight they carried.
I thought of calling out to the woods,
but the woods are busy being trees.
And the heart, I’ve found, is much like a dry field,
it doesn’t actually shatter.
It just hardens until the plow can’t find a way in,
waiting for a rain that hasn’t promised to come.
There is a certain duty in the repair,
in picking up the stones she let fall.
But for now, I’ll just watch the sky turn the color of wet slate
and wonder if the deer know the difference
between a path and a boundary.
okelododdychitchats 