Distant Summer's Rain

Distant Summer's Rain

on the island was a meadow
where the chimney had burned down
and the farmer sighed and broke the bread
and they passed the hat around

out here there's nothing sacred
except the children and the cows
and they never talk of sorrows
just the rain that's falling down

there was thunder after supper
but no one seemed to care
they just looked out on the ocean
and they wondered what was there

schoolgirls in the garden
there rose a Planter's Moon
one day they're gone forever
when the sun comes high in June

old Ben believes in fishing
it's the Gospels he forgets
but later he's reminded
when he bends to mend his nets

his wife is in the kitchen
she's smoking like a pine
and the cats are on the table
but neither seem to mind

down the road are apples
in an orchard by a cove
and the locals bring their buckets
but they keep their voices low

on the out-road there's a teacher
and he works his hands with wood
he knows that things done rapidly
are very seldom good

there are strangers on the mainland
who ply their trades somewhere
Ben heard them sing at Easter
he was sleeping in his chair

the folks here don't fear nothing
except the killing frost
and the preacher he don't bother
with the souls he knows are lost

the landscape burns like fever
and the bones they turn to dust
and Ben will wait a lifetime
for a neighbor he can trust

the winter brings a warning
and a blast of arctic wind
and he wonders how the roses
always make it back again

he sees the faces missing
in the pictures on the wall
how time plays out each season
and frames us one and all.

 2009 K.L. Stover