Category: Poetry

A Longing for Thoreau

I hold fast to my walking

stick as I leave

the beaten path to follow

my own trail

Into only partially familiar woods.

There is a part of me that

hunkers down

Here, within the gloom of autumn

or later, the promise of spring

Tilt back my head

Shake my mane and

Sniff the air.

I crouch beside the creek flowing here, simple and without a care.

A glimpse of a whitetail yearling

Frozen in the tangled underbrush

The soft call the cardinal sings to his mate

The reflection of us all in the stream

In this late November dawn

Nirvana

the coyote

the cardinal

the whitetail

and me…

 

©Nancilynn Saylor

November 2017

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Another broken morning

They did not know
when they brushed their teeth and washed their Sunday morning faces …

To join with their friends in worship
To be in a house of the Lord

As they filed into their small white
unassuming, country church
greeting each other with smiles on a bright Central Texas day
Men shaking hands
Women nodding to one
another or hugging
Maybe slipping recipes to a neighbor
before worship service was called
By the organist's opening notes.
Teenagers cast glances at their friends in other pews and innocent smiles…
No, they did not know
as they gathered together this day,
a monster lingered near.
©Nancilynn Saylor
5 November 2017