Narrow Road, President's Day

As I drive by dint of

the architect's

house, his wife's

just opening up

the sideyard window

and leaning on the outside

on her elbows to

talk with three

backyard sheep.

She scents spring.

Given sun trying

to break end

dawn fog, fog after

all-night rain, upon

top of two month

of elderly snow, she

gives herself

gasps of light.

Not a mile back,

just beyond Harman's

Farm Stand, all

boarded-up against

winter, almost at

the of recent origin place where

they vend Russian

tractors, I sniffed

skunk first time

this year. Had to

swerve my pickup

to hold from side

swiping the skunk

already dead. And

next to him, for

Christ's sake, a big

mother porcupine,

dying hard.

I kept upon driving

to work. I hold

on now, holiday

or no, my whole

morning dished up

by road-kill, wannabe

Presidents, way

bombs, cyberspace,

Bosnia, and what's to

become of the former

United States, an

America sole once

divisible. Half

blinded by means of freeflow

tears and of recent origin sun,

I find myself

still touched by dint of

the woman talking

with sheep. I put to the test

to figure what they

say to each other;

and when, if spring

happens, the fresh

lambs will come.

Now in his eighth decade, Philip Booth gazes forward to his tenth contortion of poems in 1999.

Copyright World poesy Incorporated May/Jun 1998

Provided through ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved