Poem for the Day: In the Cypress Stillness ©

In the Cypress Stillness

Old weatherboard houses
have the mouse hard at work

in a kind of indoor cemetery.
The interior blows the blue pollen

of asbestos. A curious Schnüffler,
the mouse chisels into electric wires.

Some old houses lean on their sides
like old shoe boxes broken or blown

on their journey from hill to hill. Those
high on the tips of ranges twitch like

fetlocks at their base, trees collapsed
into a pile of one hundred years. The

axe cleaved into a split star of wood.
Half way up the slopes, horses are

grazing in the cypress stillness.
They lean on each others' rumps

like old houses that sleep that way
with the taste of orchard and rust.

Under cloud the paddock has a
universe in it. Trees built by stars.

Acknowledgement: Leaning Carriage House, 8 x 16, Oil on panel, L.
painting by artist Laurel Daniel