IMAGE OF EARTH AND QUILL

Guest Poet Patricia Ann Treat



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Small boy helps mother load laundred clothes into dryer.
She lets him turn the knob.
He sits on the machine,
feeling it whirr.
He hears secrets tumbling out of cuffs and pockets.
When the clothes are dry,
he'll scatter the secrets outside for the crows and robins.
The air will ring with their telling.
The boy will chase the sounds of the birds around the backyard
and mimic their calls.
Then several large booms and several rat-a-tat-tats
puncture the air;
troops at the nearby Army base practicing the destruction
of some pretend, unseen enemy.
A two-year-old cannot capture a sound so large
or know its secet,
only that it's not a crow or bluejay
and did not come from the washing machine.


June, 2000


Patricia Ann Treat's Questions:

I'd like some advice about its line lengths. 

Also, does it sound too prosey?






The Albany Poetry Workshop