"Driving to Rowan Oak"

I
The slow hum in the walls
Sounds louder
It’s very bad tonight
My nerves! she said
Mine too but didn’t say
And cast my eye inward
To where the green
Hangs wet with bent leaves

I find that waiting for the bang
The explosion
Makes me miss the small explosions
Everyday I lose big
Or win and then
Come to you with the news of my achievement
My small victory
Only to see you shrink away
Like plastic from a fire

At the quiet hour
The time when even spirits sleep between
The unaccompanied humming walls
I see the path, it
Takes many forms
And slips serenely southward
The clouds inflating the pine
Permeating
The Springtime sunshine warm

Morning’s a misty reprieve
Painted in dawn-lonely pastels
The underbrush rife with thrush
A passing thunderpeal
Gives way
To the twilight’s humid hush

Alone or nearly alone
The thrill of your touch still
Numbing my fingertips
My road-black nails
A long dormant voice now speaks
Of trips half taken
I leave the safety of numbers
For the mystery of the trail


II
Over the blown land
Over the hanging pines
Over the callused hand
Over the rusted signs

The talking drums, sound
Just on the edge of perception
A thunderstone
Echoes spilling on the noon flat air
Thunk of recognition
Meandering thoughts I
Slump on the splashboard
Wondering if I am only prolonging the inevitable
Or opening another door

There is sclaff then scintillation
Blinding sun on the spillway
The floodwater rising
Giving birth to interred memories
In the thickheaded evening

III
There is sclaff then scintillation
The dirt of inhumation
I saw a girl who looked like you
Leaving from the station
But the train departed early
And I was far away

IV
What’s done can not be undone
Nor what’s said unsaid
The road behind us stretches further than all that’s ahead

Alone on the roadside
Smoke on the air, rising in columns
To the clouds
The air is softer, the stiletto edge of old
Mordancy diminished with my
Easy manipulation of the past

And all the while stretching
On, the sinuous road,
The forthcoming future
Exclusive in its relevance
Slides through the sarcophagus dust
Under painted oaks
Bejeweled with moss in the sun

- Daniel Brugioni