For the first time since corona, Chris and I ventured out for a weekend getaway, staying at an Air BnB cottage on a hillside near Bedford, VA. She surprised me Sunday morning with Father’s Day gifts that included a watercolor set and Gary Snyder’s zen poetry collection Danger on Peaks. Which, over coffee, led to this:
On the ridge a neighbor
tests his semi-automatic:
Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta!
Funny how it’s then
you notice quiet
a blank sheet seepingly
watercolored by
a distant rooster’s crowing
a mourning dove’s
wooden flute reply
and far down on the valley floor
the trailing hoot of a train.
Silent as a shadow
a skink with a brilliant blue tail
edges onto the deck:
Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta!
Tony Gentry 