Chums At The Grange


School out, I’d walk a pine
grove with one of them
and melt away.

Strawberry flowers like buttons
in the unfinished tasks
stacked against wood sheds.
Flying ants, poison ivy, hop toads
dandelions and muggy cricket vespers –
velveteen slang of raving breezes.

I’d find them splitting fruit wood.
Usually with their dogs, or sons, or daughters.
One had a son that died young. Wife, too.
They’d all been drafted, knew my folks,
knew how keen I was on self-reliance,
how I hung on their every word.

Swaths of May flies
hazy meadow rills
where we’d fish for bass
run our pinkies up their gills.

When an early frost nipped their blooms
a smoke scent webbed them together
listless stray motes in the talk
these chums at the Grange.
Slippery Johnson. Clarence Leon. Rusty.

They drank at The Belfonte Hotel in town
Genessee beer neon in the window.
Insisted the Decatur girl who tended bar there
would make me happy.

Rising July laughter of our arid green nights.
Stock-car racing, mud, trout, bridal and baseball seasons….

I watch a cardinal loop between spruces.
Old chums,
the woods still speak of you.

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