South Fork Poetry: On Old Country Road

The bus bores into the city

Of noises, rectagons

And life in death museums.

Getting to its pickup

Means a daydream drive

Through an Eastern woodlet:

Oak, pine, hickory

And shy dogwood trees,

Reclaiming their dead leaves.

The road is steeply banked,

Exalting the modest trees

And their rose windows.

I, too, am elevated

Passing through the glen’s

Green, quiet peace.

Then a Then, keener

Than this Now:

A school bus trip;

A yellow flying carpet

Sweeps my fourth grade class,

Mackinawed and lunch bagged,

Past stoops and bars,

Life insurers, pool halls,

Funeral homes and florists,

To the dark museum’s

Lighted diorama

Hall of Eastern Woodlands.

Still I stand before

The magic artifice

Behind the guardian glass.

Bernard Goldhirsch formerly taught English in Brooklyn. He lives in Springs.