Southbound train

lurching

and gliding

through garish nightmares of kudzu

Rattling past back doors

power lines

fluffy waving cotton faces

of the American Southeast

Every

flashing image

is like one of Tommy’s paintings

My little son saying Wow

Wow Wow

The red maples reminding me that this is the 3rd season of my new life whole and alone

Coming home

we fly through fields of afternoon

harvest light

Long hay bale shadows

Golden grasses and forests aflame

Laney’s

singing songs

about the tattered earth

I see with my heart

in the rear view mirror

his little sleepy eyes close

his head droop down

and it rips me

to shreds

A roto-tiller through my middle

churning up rich love

the color of Virginia soil

In the wake of that harvest are valleys and craters

pockets

and holes

made by civil wars of childhood

and tragedies of the ego

Gratitude creeps in and floods

that plain all the way to the brim

of my

lower lid.

 Art by Peter Sugarman