L.R. Harvey Poetry

ABSENCE Because no better way to recognize  how bare the porcelain of our plates  than an empty place at table,  no more certain tell that  the problem won’t be solved by the bell  than a desk, seventh period,  waiting like an open mouth  feeling for a question. Of course,  no purer plunk than first blueberry at the bottom of the bucket,  no truer thirst than the one  that ached us home across the vast asphalt of the cul-de-sac when the games were finished  and all the bikes clicked into gear.  And then, how many of us here,  were we to tell it like it is, can’t quite  attest to what God’s presence   feels like, but know for certain that something kept calling us back to the hollow at the trunk of the butterfly bush or beneath the stairs, that little nook in whose emptiness was the fullest we’ve ever felt.

ON TURNING 30 LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE Between the folder labeled Diminishing Portfolio of Exceptional  Experience, the thick manila of dreams  penned in red crayon Another Life ,   and in the back a plat map showing  boundaries which, i f by no means cramped,  are neither too expansive,  there’s a three-ring-binder  stuffed with a record of ordinary  occurrence on ordinary days filed under  the single heading  Hallelujah !

PROPERTY LINE And so, having taken from them  the soil and given only clay  in return, returning every year  come whatever meager harvest  they managed to grow to take again  the fat portion as payment to re-pave  a road going somewhere they never wanted to go, and other such soul-shavings  leaving them only these four walls,  this yard, and any semblance of control they can yet convince themselves  they still retain, who then is to blame  if they, we , walk out in our bathrobes to watch each other mow the middle strip or post a fence? It’s not to be  that neighbor , it’s just that there are stakes here, and there’s far  more than a few feet on the line.