1. In which our hero waxes perambular amid early spring woods.

A cool and blustery March afternoon

along the reaches of the Kennebec,

and Jeremiah is out,

as he is most days,

wandering without purpose or direction

the black bark forest

that lines the northern bank

and ensconces his hand-wrought cabin.

Deep into his seventh decade,

Jeremiah stops frequently,

to stretch deserving limbs

beneath venerable oak.

It is early yet for new bud growth

and he leans heavily back,

gazing upward

through branches glassy and moist.

Awash in the inspiration

of sky and wood,

Jeremiah speaks words into the sky

where they dance and cavort

to become poems and songs.

He watches them fly

and takes delight

in the bright music of breeze

soughing through branches.

Lost in the display

and the beauty of reverie,

he loses himself

and dozes

in tones sonorous and deep.

1. In which Jeremiah awakes to a dilemma at once disconcerting and magical.

Disturbed from sleep’s subtle embrace

by the close passage of a thing

felt but unseen,

Jeremiah notes the coolness of dusk

and blinks crusted eyes

at the day’s final rays

that burn through crooked boughs

and cast orange tones

across his haggard face.

Night’s visitation imminent,

he rises reluctantly from his place,

stretches mightily

and gazes up again

at the first star’s glint.

Turning toward the distant river’s murmur

he sets out for home,

the draw of a glowing hearth

and the company of an old dog

weighing desirous upon his tired mind.

But only a dozen steps along,

Jeremiah perceives a diminution

in the river’s call,

though certain he is walking toward it.

But it matters not,

for even with the onset of night

and the fall of shadow upon shadow,

he knows his way.

He was weaned in this wood,

or at least might have been

for he has known no other place

his whole life long.

Daylight’s presence or absence

matter not a whit,

or never have until now.

He stops on the trail,

cocks his flaxen head

and hears again

the water’s distant rush,

only it is all about now

and without direction.

He wonders if his senses,

heavy with years,

have begun at last to betray him.

And then there comes

a new sound—

perhaps the breath of the living,

perhaps only some spring sonnet

adrift on the evening air.

1. In which numerous amorphous phantasms manifest themselves.

And just when Jeremiah’s cognitive senses

begin to cast doubt

upon his perspicacious ones,

a dim but distinct blue green glow

appears in the branches

above his head.

This is no moon, he thinks,

for it is the evening

of a thumbnail crescent,

and even at its fullest,

no lunar glow ever bore such hue

nor offered warmth so close-felt.

For many moments

he stares upward rapt,

fixated upon the low branches

and the steady glow

that seems perched there

like pheasant or dove.

And so he scarcely notices

when another quite like it

creeps up from behind

to within a yard or two.

The same manner of specter,

only firmly upon the ground

rather than aloft like the first.

But the sudden faint shadow

the apparition casts across

the bed of leaves on the forest floor

does indeed make Jeremiah

turn at last,

only to marvel again.

And so it continues,

with more and similar diaphanous forms

appearing to his left and his right,

and several before him.

And only when a dozen or more

have gathered

in close assemblage

does Jeremiah perceive

the gentle low hum

that now fills the space

in which he stands

It is like the vibration

one struck string

imparts to another

when they are juxtaposed.

Which is to say

it is a secondary sound,

something induced.

Jeremiah considers tomorrow,

wonders even now

how he will describe what he saw,

what he heard,

when asked to recall it later

as he surely will be.

The ethereal phantasms,

once positioned,

do not move, save for

the subtle undulations

that attend their outermost coronas.

And at this moment

Jeremiah notes a curious feeling,

That of being trapped,

but not by the gossamer beings

that surround him.

Rather he feels trapped

inside his frail and spent corporeal body.

Trapped, yet not at all afraid.

1. In which the luminous visitations make known their purpose.

With night’s full and earnest arrival

comes black sky

against which the

vibrant glow of the visitations

beats and thrums

in every direction

of Jeremiah’s astonished gaze.

Feeling no need of escape,

only the desire to understand,

he stares first at one,

then another,

and discerns

that the colors and brightnesses

are not as similar

as they first appeared.

Perhaps it is the greater contrast

of brilliant light on blackest night.

Perhaps simply the product

of focus and concentration.

These are distinct beings;

not mere reproductions.

And the deep sounds they make,

appear muffled and indiscernible

only because they speak

or sing

in a curious but ultimately dissectible

simultaneous and harmonious chorus.

It is only when Jeremiah

focuses intently both eye and ear

upon a single one

that he realizes their sounds

are perfectly albeit subtly discernible.

And stranger yet,

they are sounds he recognizes.

His own words!

1. In which Jeremiah discovers a wondrous truth.

“We are you, Jeremiah.

Or more precisely, we are of you,”

they intone as one,

or seem to say,

as there are no faces or mouths,

only amorphous figures

of shifting color and indeterminate outline.

The words float and intertwine

in the air,

emanating from the visitors

and yet somehow removed from them.

“We are the words you have spoken,

the songs you have sung

in all your years of walking these woods.

We are everywhere,

in every tree branch and leaf

that soars above you,

every lichen and grass blade

beneath your feet.

Your days are short,

and we have come

only to offer thanks

and to tell you

that we will live on ageless

here in this wood,

singing your words and your songs

to anyone with the time

and the ear

to listen.

It is our fervent hope

that when your days are done

you will choose to remain

here among us

and be a part of this place.”

At which request

Jeremiah weeps,

not at the shortness of days,

for this is no surprise,

but rather at the beauty

of the sounds

and the specters

whence they emanate.

He reaches out a hand

to touch the nearest form,

but there is nothing to grasp,

only a cool dry breath

as his fingertips pass through

the hovering figure.

For a moment longer

he stands amidst them.

No words are spoken.

It is as if something

is being exchanged,

something precious.

Then, without warning or farewell,

the sounds begin to fade

and the figures rise gracefully

into the branches overhead

and Jeremiah,

looking up one last time,

finds again the path

and makes his way home

to begin the preparation.

in the east of England,

Sarah lives

in a tiny thatch-roof cottage

on the gentle green banks

of the chalk River Wensum.

 
Mayflies cavort upon the water,

delight for brown trout.

Otter and kingfisher contemplate one another

but have little to say, while

whorl snail and white-clawed crayfish

conspire in the chilly mud below.

 
Behind Sarah’s cottage,

a small garden

mostly tends itself.

She sits there each evening,

delighting in the acrobatics of swallows,

the silent creep of the vole,

the lumbering waddle of the badger.

 
With the cottage and the garden

and the wandering Wensum,

Sarah needs nothing more.

And as the evening sun sets

beyond the unkempt hedge,

its last sliver of light

fallen from sight,

she clips a small bundle

of wild grape hyacinth.

Carefully trimming the stems

she places them in a vase

in the center of the kitchen table,

where they will stand,

sentinel of nighttime,

until the garden and the Wensum

awake once more.

August 31, 2022

Brian Kenneth Swain

I used to go there
long ago when afternoons
went on forever.
Then we moved to someplace
where the water
only used to be.

So now it’s wren and thrush
and while I can’t quite
call it majesty, still
there’s a simple wonder
makes it worth a moment
in the window.

There’s one—the wren—
who comes back to her nest
each spring and tidies things.
And while I do not know
if harbinger’s the best word
for a humble wren,
I nonetheless feel that it’s
something she might

rather like to be.

May 8, 2022

is gone.

He will walk up to her door,
each measured step
more painful than the one before.
He has done this
ninety seven times so far.
He feels the weight of each one
as though it was his own father
or husband or son.

He will read the letter.
He will take her hand.
He will convey the sadness
and gratitude of a nation.

Then he will walk away
from the house,
smiling wanly
at the young boys in the yard
as they chase one another
with their cap guns
and argue over who is dead
and who is not.

July 4, 2021
Brian Kenneth Swain

Well, let’s have a think about that.

Yeah, so we had a disagreement.

But how are we supposed

to sort things like that out?

It’s not as if any rules

have been handed down,

or voted on, or whatever.

After all, it’s still pretty

early days for humanity,

what with there being

just the four of us at this point.

And so, I suppose you could argue

that I killed a quarter of humanity.

But it’s not like we have any

laws or government yet.

Hell, we won’t even have

ten commandments to go by

until Deuteronomy or whatever.

Where are the guardrails, you know?

You run around handing out free will

and then get pissed when people use it.

What’s that about?

So what’s a guy to do?

Did I overreact? Okay, maybe.

But that Abel was always

just pushing my buttons, you know.

So much better than me

just because he had a few sheep.

And don’t even get me started

on the whole role model thing,

what with mom and pop getting our asses

thrown out of the garden.

Seriously, what did you expect?

Anybody who takes their advice from a snake

has no business lecturing me.

June 5, 2021

Brian Kenneth Swain

Only then the astronomer
says that time began
at the start of the universe,
and will inexorably end
with the universe’s demise.
So that there’s no such thing as eternity.
God bless astronomers.

And then one day,
to muddy things up a bit more,
Einstein tells us that time itself
is nothing but an illusion.
So why all the fuss about eternity anyway?

All of which leaves us
pondering just what to believe.
No time.
No eternity.
No nothing.
They have a word for that.
Something ism.
Damn it.
I’ll be forever
remembering that.
April 27, 2021

Brian Kenneth Swain

Don DeLillo (White Noise)

I imagine that, like all of us,

it needs a break now and then.

It’s a big job, after all,

lighting and warming us all,

growing the veggies and flowers.

And with a family of nine

to look after, not to mention

two hundred-fourteen grandkids.

It’s a lot.

So I don’t begrudge the sun

its respite.

It is a thoughtful guardian,

leaving behind in its absence

a soothing nightlight

and a promise of return

the same time each morning.

I do, though, hope

that it’s not all work and sleep.

I hope that once the working day is done

it goes out at least once in a while

to grab a drink with friends,

maybe take in a movie.

It’s important to mix it up

from time to time,

let off some steam,

steel yourself for the day to come.

March 1, 2021

Brian Kenneth Swain

of cars and planes,

cell phones and internet,

how to explain to someone

under fifty the wonder

of the singing cowboy?

But sing they did,

Gene and Roy

sitting tall in the saddle

resplendent in suits of white,

strumming their guitars,

as they sauntered

off into the sunset.

My dad had all Gene’s 78’s,

with their pops and crackles,

the hiss of the needle

dragging heavy over old vinyl.

I found an old Victrola—

the kind you wind up—

to play his records on.

And though dad

rode off long ago

in his own blaze of glory,

his records live on,

Gene’s voice ringing through

the hiss and static of years,

reminder of a time when

the good guy won every gunfight,

always got the girl,

and never missed a note.

2.27.21

Brian Kenneth Swain

that was our turn back there.

This line has languished

in the unseen recesses

of my poetry working folder

for over a decade.

It does not want for company

in that literary hospice.

Yet I cannot but feel

the cold resentment

of a fragment of potential

as it wastes away,

unfulfilled, unloved.

I keep it around

because of a promise

I made through the simple act

of noting the line

in the first place,

writing it down,

giving it its own document,

with a name and a date.

I take it out every few months

to stare at the words,

and they back at me,

neither of us certain

how this will all end.

Only then, it’s back into the folder,

perhaps to couple inadvertently

with another unused phrase

or idea, but probably

doomed to just linger there

in the darkness,

desperate for purpose,

longing for life.

While it is not truly me, it is the way you like to think of me.

 Ernest Hemingway

Perception, consciousness, awareness,

the stuff of life

to hear philosophers tell it.

Descartes believed his thoughts

made him real, gave him existence.

But he would say that, wouldn’t he?

Because we are all certain that we think.

And we all aspire to be real.

Yet sometimes, when I’m alone,

I can’t help but wonder.

Could I prove that I’m real

if called upon to do so?

Real in a strict mathematical sense.

So real that no objective observer

could deny it.

I can be seen, but sight

Is nothing but electrical signals.

I can be heard, but sound

is just waves wiggling about.

I can be felt,

but can you really trust your fingertips?

As we approach this bold new age

in which anything can be faked,

how can you prove your existence

even to yourself, much less to others?

I cannot prove I wrote this poem,

any more than you can prove

that you heard it or read it.

Absent all of that, how can we be sure

that it even exists?