Last Dawn at Rensing

  Keith Andrews

Guatemala

2018

Last Dawn at Rensing

The car is packed ready to leave

I stand and listen 

Mourning doves harmonize 

It should be morning doves

Squirrels jabbering. 

Squirrley squirrels. 

Ravens

Goats

Woodpecker - or flicker?

A soundless faraway jet

Half a dozen bird calls I can’t identify (find website for birdcalls of upstate So Carolina)

A passing pickup

Bob the cat climbs the tree for no apparent purpose

Sounds of the still decimated, biologically empaupered hillsides – but certainly better today than 80 years ago when their assignment was to erode in exchange for some cotton and corn 

 

The soundless sounds of the fog clearing 

The last dew drops dropping 

Another far-off pickup going to pick something up

Inner sounds of I wanna stay, but I am off to the next adventure. 

My cold neck and feet, and sweaty torso

My poor old, nearly defeated back and well-worn teeth, and my young inner spirit 

I swear I will never work on a large concrete sculpture again

The dead autumn leaves that just won’t drop 

under them the spring flowers

My own steps and my breathing 

I breathe out my own fog, and it’s gone too

 

The neighbor’s car starts, and her young boys call out. 

Now a rooster, a domesticated bird celebrates his captive comforts

And dogs, each with its own voice. 

Why can’t I distinguish among individual birds like I can dogs? 

Ducks, Geese, a distant siren…truncated

Another jet

No Duke Energy helicopters yet (or are they really DOD?) 

 

The poem must be concrete. Mary, have I shown rather than said? 

 

7 am

Doves launch their squeaking flight. 

My sneeze stops the woodpecker, but not the doves. 

Fog still clearing, and far off 18 wheelers

Soon we will pass by the Three Percenter and Confederate battle flags for the last time

I’m going to miss the potlucks with my eco-oriented gay friends. 

 

Growth and death

Recovery and degradation, ceaseless combat

Wild and tamed

Melancholy and anticipation

Empathy and idiocy

SouthCarolinawhatafuckedupmesshowpleasantthishasbeen.

Violence, ignorance, irresponsibility…. 

Rebirth, goodness and hope