Interlude
You ask what song I carry
in my sleep. It rumbles
like a vast ocean, far off.
My ears are always
practicing. This comes
from where I grew up,
a three-acre farm with woods
and trickling creek. In spring,
I looked to new leaves,
green unfolding, alders
too thin to climb, vine
maples beckoning close
to the path, such petaled
indulgence. How the sun
likes this company! Chipmunks
chatter in the apple orchard
where sheep nuzzle the grass.
Chickens flap in their coop,
horses wait for a second
scoop of oats. Corn and beans
vie for first shoot in damp earth.
Listen, I know how the wind
talks, how it tries to tell me
what cannot be sung.
Quiet now, the ocean stirs
on my back stoop, waiting
for a pause between pebbles
to swoosh onto shore.
Carol Barrett has published three volumes of poetry, most recently Reading Wind, and one of creative nonfiction, Pansies. An NEA Fellow in Poetry, Carol supervises creative dissertations for students at Antioch and Saybrook Universities. She has lived in nine states of the US and in England.
You ask what song I carry
in my sleep. It rumbles
like a vast ocean, far off.
My ears are always
practicing. This comes
from where I grew up,
a three-acre farm with woods
and trickling creek. In spring,
I looked to new leaves,
green unfolding, alders
too thin to climb, vine
maples beckoning close
to the path, such petaled
indulgence. How the sun
likes this company! Chipmunks
chatter in the apple orchard
where sheep nuzzle the grass.
Chickens flap in their coop,
horses wait for a second
scoop of oats. Corn and beans
vie for first shoot in damp earth.
Listen, I know how the wind
talks, how it tries to tell me
what cannot be sung.
Quiet now, the ocean stirs
on my back stoop, waiting
for a pause between pebbles
to swoosh onto shore.
Carol Barrett has published three volumes of poetry, most recently Reading Wind, and one of creative nonfiction, Pansies. An NEA Fellow in Poetry, Carol supervises creative dissertations for students at Antioch and Saybrook Universities. She has lived in nine states of the US and in England.
