Thursday, October 22, 2009

BROTHER WAS A PILOT

by Scott Simpson


In the yard

that year we played,

we danced like patriots

until the afternoon our

strings and fingers stopped,

our voices caught,

we grew ashamed of

our own steps

even as we stared.

Brother came home

with one leg 

missing—a flash in his eye

like the afterimage of a wing 

clipped.



New songs descended

among us, or perhaps they rose

up from the soil where he planted

his crutch,

hymns both eternal and practical

for each of our waking

and sleeping moments

taking up residence on the

bitter tips

but never quite leaving

our tongues:



               To whom do we owe,

               this gracious honor of loss?



               What place is there 

               that grows legs for grounded brothers?



Scott Simpson is a former high school teacher, college professor, camp director and lay-minister who attempts to live a contemplative lifestyle on a planet that views quietness and stillness as destructive ideas that could potentially undermine the fabric of society. He, indeed, hopes to undermine the fabric of that society with quietness and stillness. Scott lives on a planet called Earth. Scott's poems have appeared in Switched-On Gutenburg, BigCityLit, and New Verse News, and anthologized in In Praise of Pedagogy (2000, Calendar Press). You can listen to some of Scott's music and poetry on MySpace.
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