Silences of a Summer Morn

Ron Tobey

The net of city noise

lies taut on summer’s voice.

Sunken freeways pulse

with dull traffic’s roar,

low C-17s

wheel suspended

between battles afar

and worries sighing

on the airport floor,

power mowers weave

their looms of grass,

blowers plow leaves

beneath the trees

into loose sheaves

collecting bags take,

century freight trains

a hundred cars a mile make

screech their warning horns.

Yet in the interstices

life finds fertile

silence in which to grow,

draws memory for rain,

hope for fresh air.

A world recedes.

The morning shapes

a silent nave.

A world grows near.

Cooper’s hawks whistle,

subaltern finches squeak,

racoons scamper last foraging,

coyotes yawn to bed for the day,

bees contemplate

perfumed purple bells

fallen from towers of

Jacaranda,

gnats hover over

moist grass.

15

New Hampshire

summers past,

the glassy stillness of Squam Lake,

no ducks or loons or motorboats

break the morn,

deer drink at water’s edge

beneath high pines,

long legged bugs ride

a concert of rings.

Distant a trout

stirs the surface of the pond.

Ron Tobey grew up in north New Hampshire, USA, and attended the University of New Hampshire, Durham. After professional careers in Southern California, he and his wife moved to West Virginia, where they raise cattle and keep goats and horses. Ron has written poetry for personal pleasure since he was 16, but only with retirement has he written poetry for publication.

© Variant Literature Inc 2021