Personal History

Personal History (view in gallery and store | image by bruce harris

Two herons, a couple, fly down our street

tunneled with towering oak, winging

silent and large as if to show balance

and grace are still alive somewhere

in this world.

And the cicadas rub their wings

playing their ancient summer drone

here long before the golf course was made

with its established Civil War prestige

bunkers and sod covering Native land.

And the place of our first kiss

teen spirits trespassing and entwined

over the burial sites we didn’t know were there

somewhere under the moon and the lightning bugs

and our dancing tongues.

Years later hawks circle and cry.

Coyotes gather at the 14th green

howling in the lunar light over spilled prey.

Our dog paces within our glass house

ears pricked, mouth panting and wet.

This morning we walked down our street

bordering the course. That’s when the herons

flew past. First their shadows, then their tails

disappearing through the green.