When I was but fifteen-years old, my grandfather was a good, if not great hunter, a sportsman one might say, something I never quite acquire a taste for. That was around around l956, I suppose, take or give a little, a year here a year there. Now that I look back on those wondrous days [for times plays an interesting game with our memory banks, time, the commodity that once spent, will never return] for he is dead now, I wrote a poem to remember him by, possibly the only one my memories can recall as I’ve gotten older. Matter of fact, I wrote two poems, the first called, “The Drumming of the Woodpecker,?and “Faded Overalls,?I never shared them with anyone, but for you, especially for you, I shall:
The Drumming of the Woodpecker
The woodpecker’s dry hammering dims, draws out other sounds: --of the aged?the dying away; —yet, the squirrels, pheasants, turkeys, bears and coons, the deer, running, running from the dogs, and their Masters of the night? could hardly be heard on their last winter’s plight
[the old man sat by his friend]:
“Pour me another whisky!?said he [the old man] holding out a tin dipper [to his friend]; —sitting in a rocking chair. A quarrel then broke out about what? when they were to go hunting again. Being as young as I was [back then] I simply stood by the screened-in doorway, staring, staring –not knowing then, listening?br />
…scorned by the gloom of time? decaying within, gutted like a dead fish of any healthy internal organs, —neither of them said a word, not one word [but they were both wishing]; for a commodity spent.
Faded Over-halls
Battered and faded over-halls, an old straw hat—the barn we, he and my brother and I lived in, and ma, a miniature lot of land, in this eternal restless city, is where we lived, way back when. I remember the eyes, the eyes of an owl, in the tree next door, staring at me, in the waking day? blood, skin and bones, was nothing compared to the memories one puts down to rest for another
the lucid, unquenchable and not so thought through memories, left behind
now I know why he said what he said, for I remember, commit to memory him saying: “Once you show fear you are alone,?–“when you let go of everything to become lost, nothing in the world can harm you.? Now I understand?br />
Dennis Siluk see his 30 books on web sites allover the internet, such as http://www.Alibris.com or http://www.abe.com