I Can Not Bend Down to Kiss
I can not bend down to kiss
though still warm to touch
and life so close at hand.
Woken in the night,
and she is gone.
‘Let’s go’ and ‘Why?’
are given each in turn
to stand those few minutes
there and not able to return.
Separated not by death,
but by life itself the distance
judged by the brown broken
stocks of corn row on row
out to the place where
there is only more to walk.
The burial ground lies above the town
on a roll of prairie
sprinkled with trees,
bordered by town and
surrounded by crushed stocks of corn
endless and final with
the Catholics there and
Protestants here
lined up for eternal strife.
Something was missed
along the way, and
I do not know how
the path received no care
but it is overgrown unnaturally
to where there is no walking through.
Even though the distance can
be seen and the sharp edge
of town and field discerned,
the road is brambled with thorns
grown even in the winter night.
I can not bend down to kiss
and I really know not the way
to wind my way through
the undergrowth.
The November light
makes clear the distance,
de-marks the far off trees,
the edge of the field, and
the onset of town;
so clear and geometric,
but there is not light enough
to return the way we came.
Nokomis
November 7, 1999
Nokomis Series
©1999 I Can Not Bend Down to Kiss — Joseph W. Yarbrough
Reproduction prohibited without written permission.
though still warm to touch
and life so close at hand.
Woken in the night,
and she is gone.
‘Let’s go’ and ‘Why?’
are given each in turn
to stand those few minutes
there and not able to return.
Separated not by death,
but by life itself the distance
judged by the brown broken
stocks of corn row on row
out to the place where
there is only more to walk.
The burial ground lies above the town
on a roll of prairie
sprinkled with trees,
bordered by town and
surrounded by crushed stocks of corn
endless and final with
the Catholics there and
Protestants here
lined up for eternal strife.
Something was missed
along the way, and
I do not know how
the path received no care
but it is overgrown unnaturally
to where there is no walking through.
Even though the distance can
be seen and the sharp edge
of town and field discerned,
the road is brambled with thorns
grown even in the winter night.
I can not bend down to kiss
and I really know not the way
to wind my way through
the undergrowth.
The November light
makes clear the distance,
de-marks the far off trees,
the edge of the field, and
the onset of town;
so clear and geometric,
but there is not light enough
to return the way we came.
Nokomis
November 7, 1999
Nokomis Series
©1999 I Can Not Bend Down to Kiss — Joseph W. Yarbrough
Reproduction prohibited without written permission.