SATURDAY AFTERNOON AFTER THE INAUGURATION

by Penelope Scambly Schott

Two boys racing bikes in tight circles

in the school parking lot.

The neighbor directly across the street

stepping into his shop.

My husband out in the yard mucking

with who-knows-what.

The dog fast asleep on the couch,

nose under one front foot.

Biden at his desk in the Oval Office

busily mending the past.

As if all our lives were now as simple

as what’s-for-dinner?

Penelope Scambly Schott is a past recipient of the Oregon Book Award for Poetry. Her newest book is On Dufur Hill, poems about the cycle of the year in a small wheat-growing town.

NOVEMBER AGAIN

by Juditha Dowd

and I’m doubtful

that no experience goes to waste

if only we’re able to learn from it.

Deer have mangled our deer fence,

that fox is prowling the yard.

Where will we be next year

when these maples shed their gold?

You and I have lived enough

to pretend at wisdom,

take the long view,

but the angles are foreshortened

as our fields turn murky and cold.

Soon the Long Night Moon

and two-faced Janus.

Soon the weeks of ice,

the days of mending.

Juditha Dowd’s most recent book is Audubon’s Sparrow, a verse biography in the voice of Lucy Bakewell Audubon, wife of the naturalist.