Two Pieces from a Day Off

There are crowds of writers in my head, sitting around some imaginary table. The preacher is a new arrival, mumbling in the corner with a strange box next to him. It appears to be smoking. The literary snob with a stack of old books, eyebrow eternally raised, plops down next to the naturalist. “New flannel, Josh?” he smirks. Another thinks he understands both social science and geopolitics, but the metalhead tries to keep him in line. Today, the poet has been on a trip over the mountain to see friends. He’s not ashamed to cry in public, but the other ones try to help him over the fact that the Trillium flowers will bloom next year, too, and it’s really alright, pull yourself together man, the ladies don’t like that. He’s brought a sheaf of papers, but the editor fiddling with the salt and pepper shakers holds up a firm hand. “Only two today. We’ll run the rest on Friday.”

Real things.

A Literary Discussion In a Roadside Burger Joint

BURGER HISTORY 4/29/25

I write on on the wall

(Everyone does at this joint. It’s the only one in town that lets you, and the only one in town period, but would be the best in town even if it were a spatula-clashing city vying for glory.)

The chef wandered by and I shook his hand

“Better than Denny’s I had when I was 8. Been a long time since I ordered one.”

Talked with some pals about doing stuff, how it’s easy to get lost, float away in the clickety clack of keys

“Why just this morning…

Living the mouse life, eating cheese unobserved

Interrupted by the sound of a diesel across the way

There’s always excitement at the farm (and some way to be useful, which is a changer of many games)

The driver was patient “Make sure you can see my mirrors” (endless shotgun hours on the interstate should have told me that, the back of trucks the road’s cereal box, something to read. If you can’t see my mirrors, I can’t see you.)

So I waved him in and he didn’t run over anything, and didn’t jack knife in spite of my help.”

But it’s easy to get lost in the clickety-clack of keys/to catch misery like some dreaded virus/assume everyone wants to escape reality/that they hate it/that it’s worthy of hate/too bad, though, BECAUSE:

There’s stuff worth doing.

And little roadside burger joints

where they say “good choice”

re: the Swiss and mushroom

Outside, the road goes up, towards things worth doing

back to things not all outrage and umbrage

Soaked in sun and the dawn of spring

Instead of the glare

of a

screen.

Stone steps up to the old narrow-gauge logging rails on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Once Ago

It had been a long time

since the sunlight and peace

the safety of the herd

I had almost forgotten/contending as we all must/with market prices

But once, on a sunny day long ago

I had felt like this before (I think. Maybe it was autumn. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between hope and melancholy in the way they ache.)

Cares and coyotes are things of the night

But are blessedly easy to forget when surrounded by the sound of chewing

and the mamas keeping watch

Once ago

(I remembered)

I sat and drank it all in while J-21 eyed me with a wrinkled brow

And I eyed him back.

Such was the big event of the hour.

South Poll Elves.