Summer, After Noon
Robins singing in the Rose of Sharon,
its leaves and branches thick
enough to keep them out of sight
until you get close and silence them,
like the bones of an abandoned life
towering over thickets of thistle
and tall, tightly crowded trees,
not there until you almost walk in,
the front door open just a bit
to let the ghostly voices welcome you.
5 thoughts on "Summer, After Noon"
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Len, you can sure squeeze optimal music and meaning out of 10 lines of poetry! Well done.
“like the bones of an abandoned life”
& you almost walk in on the ghostly voices. This is vivid & ephemeral
From sound to silence to those ghostly voices . . . very engaging and makes me curious.
Len, you are on fire! Love the dignity and gravity of your poems.
Thank you, all. That Rose of Sharon is 10 feet from my front door, and stands some 25 feet high. The birds love it. Meanwhile, one of my ongoing photography projects is capturing abandoned places, some of which are so overgrown as to be all but invisible. I make a lot of noise around them, not because of ghosts, but so I don’t startle any squatters.