A Red Hen and a Small Woman (and other poems)

A Red Hen and a Small Woman

A red hen goes scratching inside its small house
		while hail gravels the roof 
		and I watch a bent woman walk resolutely on
		into the racing fog and wonder where she’s going.
Cows moan, horses nicker, the rooster crows once as if its neck’s broken.
The famous quiet before descends, approaches complete stillness 
		except for the slender trill of the random breeze.
Then the Oz scenes:
		the tin roof on the corncrib flaps and screams, 
		dust wraiths flute into the black afternoon.
The farm sleeps on.
And in a corner of the canvas the sky begins to lift its blue eyelid.
Eventually, the storm rolls up its coven of loud children 
		into its gray rug and goes off home.
Mother yells for us to come out of the storm cellar 
		now the morbid fear of tornado’s gone.
Grandfather smiles.
Myself, though, fixed at the window, hidden, 
		am following that woman as she goes further 
		on into something I think is longer and deeper
		and wider and more dreadful and wondrous 
		than any of my mother’s fearsome storms.
I crawl into Grandfather’s lap.
When I begin telling him what I saw and what I think 
		about who that small woman is and where she’s gone 
		and what might become of us all, he keeps smiling.
The sun shone, the crops showed solidarity and rose up, drought stayed away,
		as did locusts and frogs and other wild misfortunes.
The fog will come again.
The storm will rain with ice.
The chicken will scratch for kings and queens.
Then the small woman will come, doggedly walking,
		and grandfather will go on smiling, holding still, 
		as will we all, when the weather decides it’s had enough, 
		and we grow patient, at last, waiting and listening hard
		to the thin sound of that hen scratching 
		for something a boy might plant 
		that takes him to the stars.

Two Roads

He went further down the road than intended.
Getting back took him around the bend 
		and so much longer to get back.
She didn’t wait.
Her anger, so long simmering, took her
		where it needed to go.
She took the bus, another road,
		and would let the eagle fly 
		on Friday and Monday and forever’s foreseeable future.
He looked over the horizon, could see 
		the commotion only in past tense.
The birds no longer told him their secrets.
He’d have to figure it out himself.
Had he loved her?
And the un-struck match in that haystack?
So much came down to time,
		its ineffability, and how much of it
		he’d squandered or misunderstood.
He should’ve stood still, silent,
		counted slow towards serenity,
		not taken that walk, 
		not slammed that door,
		not said what he said
		on the way to this walk.
Should have, could have, and now
		will she or won’t she?
Like black petals on a green flower in a snowy field,
		like sullen birds roosting in the shadows,
		where there used to be trees 
		and a woman that sang,
			sang like this 
		even as he persists
		on trying to find some way home.