Life’s Little Misdirections 🥀🦋

Sunday Epic Poem Memory

Summer Silencer

He needed an automatic life silencer
from the moment his own screams
pierced the dense skull, rooted
in its stem to the core
until he was hollow --
A boy alone
flashlight
in tent
blankets
warmed in dark
swaddled him in --
With musty old pillows
that sometimes produced
a curious insect crawling across
his pale head perusing comics
or colorful Sunday section
at their woodland camp
beneath the pinnings
on the clothesline
where he hid
from them
all day

When supper was called he would hesitate
until a quilt peeled back produced her
expectant face and light behind it
as she repeated her words lovingly
Time to eat
Not a command, a call
to face the snarling man
at their table
When he wasn't there
life outside the silencer continued --
By the creek, spying for frogs --
Under the apple viewing bees
serenading pink buds --
Along the power line that made a trail --
rugged properties connected

Strawberries would sometimes hide
beneath red and green leaves
still too early for maturation
for a child who could remember
a happy man who drove their
green truck bouncing them --
unbelted on saddled stead --
over uneven terrain
to collect wood discarded
by yellow hat utility workers busied
with clearing their trail

With small lungs he drank in
wafting vapors --
gasoline and oil mixed
with summer air. Ears inhaled
tempered buzzing from
a one-horsepower propelled blade
chained, decisively ripping
trunks into stackable pieces
handed up to load where
he obediently stood inside
the paint-worn, metal bed
He would push down
oversized work gloves
from finger tip to palms repeatedly
The morning soaked his face
in their clearing where he wished lay
beside harvested timber --
tightly packed by him --
load approved by the cutter

They would return to wedge and split
stack and earn lemonade
on the tailgate
He would eventually learn
buzzings produced by cutters
were not always as even
as hewn wood

After the last meal
before sundown
he spent one more hour
dreaming inside
a temporary lair --
imagining a new man
to court his mother --
One who'd rub his head
when he passed
share a good word --
Who'd let him lay
next to him in the easy chair
(before too big to share)
read the castoffs
of Sunday sections
until breakfast
at the table in their den
off the kitchen
where she prepared
and called her loving
mealtime phrases

And before the last clothespin dropped --
the final blanket folded up
and stored in the cabin --
He took one look
into the sky
he missed
shrank
and sighed
Walking toward
the idling green truck
he glimpsed a man he had
not seen all weekend, who smiled
The man who taught how to
clip blankets to wire lines
with pins, he recognized
Good thing automatic
life silencers
have pins.


more edits pending

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Life’s Little Misdirections 🥀🦋  (18+) 10k views, 2x BestPoetryCollection. A nothing from nowhere cast words to a world wide wind #1149750 by He’s Brian K Compton