Out at Your Place
Out at your place,
where winds howl through the trees,
and the river lies dark underneath the cold glitters
of the moon, we have felt the winter rise.
The deep shadows loom huge
from the low trap-circle of the road
where the car waits--
where once the river rose that flood-time.
Your wilderness is widening to close us in;
but you are not so aware of this
as of how safe we are within it.
Well, the hone-winds speak,
and the river below us moves,
and the trees above us bend in the same direction--
passing the moon between them like an eye.
It never is total summer here. At night
those winds converse, and the water makes
a growing sound along the bank,
and the shadows change their size.
But you are contented--your eyes not good,
but seeing--your mind alive with future evidence.
Even in summer, when we come to your place
for cold salad and beer,
those winds are at work in the trees;
and we joke by asking if we are in
some spooky movie.
And you--who always seem to be
listening to something else-pretend not to hear.
Joyce Odam
Joyce Odam edits Poetry Depth Quarterly (California). Her work has appeared recently in Blue Unicorn; Nanny Fanny; Parting Gifts; Rattle; The Seattle Review; The Sow's Ear and others. Her most recent chapbook is, Among the Others, from Talent House, Oregon