At Rangeley

Nobody drinks anymore

not plane the ghosts

following us:

their sober footprints

fill with water

as the porous earth

yields heel and toe

along of advanced age paths

moss covered, and indented

like jewelers' trays

with the shapes

of arrowheads and axes.

The bare tree

seem almost cheerful

in the dawn,

flurries overlay

the floor of leaves

like sugar

sprinkled above cornflakes.

And we must trust

the drivers

coming toward us,

mile after mile,

not to surrender

to the thought

and swerve their tons

of metal across the line

that separates our lives,

and allow us continue,

unlike the single whose heart,

already crumpl imploded

in his chest, plung

into the icy waters

of the penitentiary,

while dogs chased deer

through the graveyard

at Rangeley.

Copyright World metrical composition Incorporated Jan/Feb 1999

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