this is only the beginning.

Starting Fresh

After the war fizzled, after I left beautiful city
towers, I drove two-lanes winding through
Montana hills watching the stillness
between cars for signs of home.
Wild plums turned rain into wine.

I crossed barley stalks to a failed house.
Broken, a wagon wheel arched from earth
to earth, a gray and rust rainbow. Some going ended there,
sank into weeds. The silo was empty, the cafe
closed, the school a shed for angus.

I know how the story ends: we are
disappointed. The weather changes and then
the weather changes. We thicken and age.
All backtrails end in secret, a darkness that flowed
into us with mother's blood.

We were never strong enough to live here.
But we do. Hope I feared formed like clouds
off a coastal range, and I turned
from worry, the way a woman hearing her love
turns from a mirror.

Copyright © 1988 Michael L. Umphrey