(Revised 10.6.16)
In the alleyway
cool breezes sleeping chickens
under ancient trees.
I linger. It’s noon.
They say smoke still hangs over
the derailed oil train
in the Gorge but no
crude stains the Columbia.
Fortune smiled they say.
No wind-whipped flames fill
the space carved from the Cascades
by Ice-Age meltdowns.
Sighs in the tree tops
say signs. To be good this life
needs many virtues.
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Author: Tom D'Evelyn
Tom D'Evelyn is a private editor and writing tutor in Portland OR and, thanks to the web, across the US and in the UK. He can be reached at tom.develyn@comcast.net. D'Evelyn has a PhD in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley. Before retiring he held positions at The Christian Science Monitor, Harvard University Press, Boston University and Brown University. He ran a literary agency for ten years, publishing books by Leonard Nathan and Arthur Quinn, among others. Before moving to Portland OR he was managing editor at Single Island Press, Portsmouth NH. He blogs at http://tdevelyn.com and other sites.
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This is deeply satisfying, Tom. The words open slowly and as the lines continue there is a sustained air of time being in suspense and of the speaker’s mind drifting and coming to rest on the news of a dramatic incident elsewhere. It’s bad news but also good news; it’s ambiguous. And then the poem closes with a reflection left appropriately open. And it reads so naturally, so unforcedly. Three cheers from over this side of the Atlantic!
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Thanks so much John. The virtues you mention are those you practice, so it means a lot. I was about to add this stanza: “No wind-whipped flames fill/ the space carved from the Cascades/ by Ice-Age meltdowns”– that could go before the final stanza and strengthen the argument about good luck.
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