Listener of Sidewalk Traffic
Through the modest window above their bed, the young woman lay still and listened to voices of passersby with words lifting and falling. She waited in the dark for coolness to find her. Her fast ears wandered and scanned the surface like a submarine, shyly listening.
Outside, townsfolk set down heavy yokes and let jokes, simple joys, and fragments of the day fall from their lips like Hansel and Gretel dropping crumbs of bread. Sidewalk traffic walked and talked freely while a bride listened in secret and pictured the lives led by passersby.
Their round sounds floated up and pressed in through the screen. Beside her sleeping groom, she lifted a prayer and gave herself to the breeze blowing past the lock and coiling clock.
I scribble-scrabble to embrace all this. The woman with the rosy smile gives voice to a cozy season forty-six summers later. I say to myself, So that explains it. Not a shaker of heaven and earth, but someone of noble note who never forgot the way she came. An incredible anchor, a woman ready to pray and hear with both ears, whether my life has a hole poked in it or not.
by Pat Durmon
Blind Curves (2019)
P.S.
Dear readers,
Through October of this year, poetry has been the main "topic of the day" for my weekly blog posts. Each selected poem has been published in one of my four poetry books, as shown below. Clicking on a book will take you to its amazon.com page. Any purchases and reviews are greatly appreciated!
Thank you and God bless you!
Pat Durmon
(patdurmon.com)
Richard and Darlene Collins in front of the house on Jackson Street in Monticello, Arkansas, where they lived some of the happiest years of their lives as newlyweds. Photo taken on their 50th anniversary by Deanna C. Cassity, May 15, 2009.
