Silent but Certain Agreement
A North Carolina poet fills her verses with memories and observations that flow from the present day back into the years passed and gone.
The Front Porch
When Granny and Papa sat on the front
porch, she in her cotton dress and bonnet,
a pinch of snuff between her lip and gum —
and Papa in faded overalls, hands folded
in his lap like old letters — there was no
need for talking. With so many decades
stretched between them like telephone
wire, there was nothing left for them to
say. But their chairs rocked in unison to
the sound of near-identical creaking, and
their heads would nod, now and again, in
silent but certain agreement that all was
well. Their hard work from sunup to sun-
down was finished at last, and they could
do no more than what they had already
done. The children, grandchildren, great-
grandchildren, and others to come, would
have to carry on without them. The time
had come to rest, to listen to birdsong and
wind-rustled leaves — the stories of their
lives, told or untold, as sacred as psalms.
Johnny Talks to Mizz Poole on the Phone
for Maricam and Johnny
To Johnny’s next-door-neighbor, Mizz Poole,
he can do no wrong. A local “boy” born and
bred in a small Southern town, he treats people
like he’d want to be treated, especially folks
like Mizz Poole, a woman halfway through her
eighties. I like how he raises his voice just loud
enough to be heard over the wind whipping
around his beach chair, that he calls her Mizz
Poole with exactly the right amount of caring
respect. In fact, he acts like he’s been waiting
for her call all morning, and there’s nothing he
likes better than talking to her. He says he’s
sorry they’re out of town — he and Maricam —
so they can’t have a pizza party tonight. But,
“tomorrow evening,” he tells her, “We’ll bring
you one for supper.” She could order it, of
course, but it wouldn’t be the same as a meal
not only delivered but shared. And pizza tastes
so much better with that nice local “boy” and
his sweet wife to talk to — the pair of them
a lesson in human kindness as they walk in her
door — Johnny holding a warm cardboard box,
and Maricam, arms waiting to hold Mizz Poole.
Coyotes
Once again, the early-morning sun is opening
the tattered gray curtains of December. Bare
branches act as blinds through which the sun’s
gaze now shines, gilding the frozen grass that
only hours ago, melted beneath the warm paws
of a coyote and her pups. Howling and yipping,
they crossed our backyard by the muted gleam
of a crescent moon, headed to where the cold
light of a winter morning would not easily find
them. Slipping into the dense woods, they were
lost to us—humans half-asleep in our bed—save
for sounds we will not soon forget. Their cries
were as wild as anything we have ever heard, as
if coyotes were newly created and seeking others
of their kind or, perhaps, warning them all away.
Terri Kirby Erickson is the author of six collections of poetry. Her work has been published by “American Life in Poetry,” The SUN, The Writer’s Almanac, and many more, and her awards include the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize and a Nautilus Silver Book Award. She lives in North Carolina.