WINTRY MIX

Winter slush prints

boot bottoms, deer and bird tracks, and squirrel feet

on top of the earth;

water, ice, snow, sleet become

wet inked and plaster cast soles and hooves that

leave mud-like depressions

of ambulatory relics that won’t be baked in a desert or

frozen in permafrost

to create twenty-first century fossils.

The earth will absorb them

like it consumes the weight of

most travelers whose tracks

crisscross at different times and places

without a common origin or destination

appearing like Brownian motion

on top of the earth’s surface

as the cold air’s tentacled hold

on water’s freezing states breaks

and releases the winter’s ground covers. 

The steps cannot be retraced;

trips across the field or along the wood line are lost;

scampering steps to the nearest tree disappear;

foraging steps before an instant ascent to flight vanish;

and break-neck runs for the wood’s camouflage colors

melt away.

Each step is written over,

layers of steps lost

as each new script is added;

the old is absorbed into the fibers of the document

and cannot be recovered

as soon as a new text is scrawled across

that earthen page.   

©cmheuer, February, 2019

THE MEAN SPIRITED

There were times when the mean spirited were scattered.

A few rotten apples in a barrel.  A villain or two in a novel.

There were times when the mean spirited swarmed,

Historical eras when the vicious prevailed, and

Plagues of violence descended like locusts,

Infecting the lemmings,

Suffocating the benevolent.

There were times when the mean spirited

Were cast as contemptible,

Their sinister intent indisputable,

Their infamous fate predetermined and sealed.

Now the mean spirited are double-sided;

Jekylls and Hydes cruise around,

Feign a spirit of good will,

Hide combative ferocity and devious intent,

Until scapegoats are found.

Then they change faces and build their ranks

By slithering into the hearts of unsuspecting hosts,

By taking over the discourse, they misrepresent and destroy.

Flaunt their villainy and laugh

Because they know it all,

Because they see pride in cruel, deceitful artistry,

Because they see pride in a con achieved.

They search for reasons to hate, for excuses to bully,

     any variation, a tone of voice, verbal offenses

     become elaborate narratives sold as believable,

     woven without fear of reprisal,

     built to make suffering a sport,

     selected to ensure their quarries

     are taken down with single shots.

Who will search out these villainous scourges?

Destined to appear again today and tomorrow,

Who will protect the scapegoats?

Where are the staunch defenders?

Where is a mirror that will reflect

The bully undisguised?

©cmheuer, January, 2019

WEATHER VANE

A chicken, four compass points, and an arrow

Placed on the peak of a second-story roof

Said little about the wind--

Just its direction--

Nothing more than a useless ornament,

Someone noted and looked away.

Until one day it fell to the ground in a high wind,

Toppled from its hundred-year-old perch

Without ceremony or ritual.

Tossed to the back of an old chicken house,

Among galvanized chicken feeders,

Nothing more than a discarded relic,

Someone noted and closed the old wooden doors

To the brooder where baby chickens had been raised.

I kept looking up for the old weather vane

As if it were a bad habit that I couldn’t break,

My eyes scanning the roof line without seeing

The wind’s direction among compass point letters,

Without seeing the motion of the arrow.

There was only an empty space

Below the twisted oak leaves.

Where the weather vane had been,

There was no direction,

No magnetic north,

No compass,

And the sun was covered

By dark wind clouds that

Made clocks run back and forth

Arrowless,

Chaos shook the window panes of the house

And rain shuttered the glass

Until I could bear it no longer

And set out for the chicken house

Drenched and blinded

To search for the old weather vane

Thrown into a dark corner,

Useless and bent,

Rusted and shabby,

I carried it to a metal worker,

Who restored each part

And ascended a ladder to install

It back on the roof peak beneath the tree leaves,

Where it makes sense of the wind and

Its breathless motion. 

© cmheuer, 2018

VANQUISH HATE

Vanquish hate.

Capture every last word of it

Before it escapes on loathsome breaths.

Scramble its deceitful messages

Until they cannot be heard or read.

Words exist that have no venom.

Rescue them!

Save them from angry slogans,

From loaded guns and malignant lies.

Give these quiet words air to breathe.

And they will rise again

On the haunted breaths of fallen voices.

They will drown out the diabolic hiss

And emerge anew bearing

Light and reason.

©cmheuer, 2018

MYTHIC GRANDMOTHERS

Their stories were told around dinner tables,

Under trees in backyards as busy hands

Shucked corn or shelled butter beans.

Anecdotes grew into short narratives

And into life lines drawn across generations,

Myths carried by word of mouth

As if sung in epic poems.

One birthed twelve children with nine surviving;

All nine said she always smiled.

A hand-colored photo was taken by a photographer,

Traveling from house to house.

She sat on a bench in a purple dress with a lace collar;

her husband stood behind her. 

She looked at the photographer. 

Her husband looked at her. 

It hung over a fireplace

Long after their fiftieth wedding anniversary.

One was photographed for her wedding.

She and her husband stared at the photographer.

Her high-necked lace gown was kept in a closet. 

A large hand-colored portrait of her was taken in a studio.

She sat on a high-backed chair

In a dark green dress holding a red rose.

One nursed her children through diphtheria.

One starved and gave what food she had to her son.

One had a house full of laughter and hand-me-downs,

Depression era rations, home-made fudge,

And macaroni with cheese and tomatoes.

One traveled on a boat across the Atlantic with her only child.

Pneumonia and starvation were their companions.

Her husband--killed in the first world war. 

One made baby beds out of empty cigar boxes

Lined with white lace and pink flannel,

For little girls who called her Nannie.

One didn’t know she would have grandchildren.

One died at 83.

One died at 34 bringing her son to Ellis Island;

Some said she was buried at sea;

Some said she was buried on land.

One rests forever beside her husband.

One was lost and found

Almost a century later. 

State of New York

Department of Health of the City of New York

Bureau of Records

Standard Certificate of Death.

The name of the cemetery listed.

©cmheuer, 2018

FIDDLE, BANJO, and GUITAR

Open windows carry the sound of

A fiddle and banjo played louder

Than the cicadas’ drumming songs

Or the hoot owls’ calls

For Saturday Night revelry

In overalls and house dresses

Damp with summer’s long days. 

A guitar, slung over the shoulder,

Rests on a knee bent for a low chair

And pillows spread out on the floor

In a candle light’s golden glow.

Bare feet and the light-fingered strum of

New-born songs wander onto a balcony

High above the street with voices raised

To roof top rows

In a moonlight’s somnolent flow. 

Unrecorded rhythms and rhymes

Set to air and left to thread their way

Unguided across the girth of stars,

Unleashed to rise and fall,

Spread out to fields and alleys,

Sail towards a horizon

Where some standing still and far away

In the night

Might hear a phrase that

Has never been played or sung

Before or after. 

 

© cmheuer, 2018

RIVERSIDE

To sit beside a river near the lap of shallow waves

where water smooths out the sand.

In the distance a deep channel

carries motor boats and mariner winds

up and down the currents for the pleasure of it,

for the bounce of the bow,

for the dip of the stern,

for the stiff blast of air against the face

that drowns out phonetic sounds with a motor’s roar.

To sit in the middle of a river on a dry boulder

where water rushes past large stones.

Wild, overgrown banks are set in motion  

by wind-blown branches,

shores are close enough to call across,

a bridge is low enough to see

anyone standing beside the river bed,

and it is shallow enough to walk across

when there are long droughts and dry wells.

To sit on a curb and watch river water

flood historic districts and tobacco warehouses.

Its overflow rises to the tops of street signs

that serve as underwater map pins

set afloat like channel buoys

to mark bateau boats unearthed,

slave auctions hushed,

warehouses burned, and  

African American burial grounds paved over.

To sit by a riverside remembered

and pause the water’s flow.

©  cmheuer, 2018