Author Archives: John

                                        “We may be living on an atom
                                        in somebody’s wallpaper.”
                                                    – Wendell Berry (“Dust”)

1.
Between worlds, the sun leaked through
the shingles of Granddad’s dark shed
where the pixie dust would dance, sparkle

within light beams, as my sister and I
urged invisible steeds to town adventures—
fly aboard the manure spreader stored

for the future, the iron wheels and idle
wagon tongue would wait to take us
to wild dimensions for young dreams.

2.
The friction wears us smooth and fine,
cobbles, sand and dust. In the dry years
midden rises under hoof on a gust,

generations lifted to cloud the light
that smell like deer hides and taste
like acorns—tiny planets inhaled

behind cattle drawn to gather here
to wait and see how serious we are
about leaving what feels like peace.

3.
Through a stained glass window high
above the hand-hewn beams in the adobe
Chapel atop the prep school’s hill,

the call of selflessness floated on motes
that framed the sermon, moving me
from the wooden pews filled with two

hundred other vacant blue blazers
into another world for a week or so, yet
clings still to particles that float in space.

‘Dust’