A Sort of Music

“I'd let 'em down easy, let 'em down easy,”
said the man who drove implacably
the cruelest war of the age:
but he wanted his beaten enemies

to go home and start again, build
a new coop for the chickens,
haul the beehives upright, turn
their muddy ground into fields.

What becomes of us now?
The hills are no closer, the sky no further.
The first frost comes
when it always did.

We reach for whatever splinter-hafted
tools are still in reach:
at a distance the banging of a hammer
becomes a sort of music.



In response to this Morning Porch post.