A Sudden Calm by Brandon Shane

A Sudden Calm

Old men puff cigars

as crows caw on wire,

and rain cleans the roofs,

spilling onto tarped stands,

knowing their few friends

may be dead tonight,

after saying goodbye

to wives, sisters;

sipping whiskey, sucking grease,

and as farmers with rough hands

push their red wheelbarrows,

small aside their skyward barns

that continue without expiration,

they wonder why the hawk

has yet to swoop down,

while their nests are gone;

those younger and healthier,

on the edges of villages

where prosperity is organic

and swallowed with silver

utensils; these old men

have inhaled every chemical

and sniffed the high

in all things.

God has been favorable, one says,

God has been most cruel, another,

and they drink until the sun roams

far enough, the moon returning

to their table; like a soul, a beating heart,

imagining if it was them being remembered;

being the last of your confidantes

and kinsfolk, tombstone ancestors,

the trail begins to knot with bramble,

and the park rangers cede

this one to nature.