A house still stands near
the place you crashed but it creaks
and it leans -paint peels, eerie
white lights twinkle within.
People ran out on
a moonless night, when
you struck the combine cutter bar
broken off too close to the shoulder.
The road you’d traveled
for 70 years offered no sign
trusting, it does, local drivers
look out for themselves.
And farmers too, tuck
their machines away at night
but something awry -you were old and young
falling in love & whistling your way home
As the story goes, there were
dashboard lights, flashing sheriff lights
helicopter beams, you were never
a seatbelt man in a time before airbags
in the airlift copter you remembered
key numbers – your new lady friend,
your only daughter who awoke to
a message from the skies
Was your last breath a whistle?
Was your last breath a sigh? Whoa boy.
Were you ever complete with your life?
We ask but we cannot know.
The old man died on a country road
full heart broken in a spatter of light
and each time I pass, I see ghosts of a combine,
the car wreck, the house with the eerie glow.
Early Morning Poems 