Barry Ballard

Leaving What the Light Filled

“. . . alack the heavy day, that I have worn so many winters out, and know not now what name to call myself.”
			– Shakespeare, Richard II

Maybe that’s me sitting on the bench, head
dropped between the knees . . . exhausted. And
    playing
the role of a stranger, my eyes engraving
the earth between my dusted feet with the lead
tip of a heavy mind. Not a scattered
journey’s end, but winters to know what being
human is about, enough of fleeing
the mind’s shelter and then being gathered

back to reclaim it. And maybe that’s
you sitting next to me, arm draped over
my shoulders with the audience listening
(just like me), whispering, “We all live with bread,
feel want, taste grief, and need friends.” And then I
leave what the light filled, for a few steps up the
    road.

Helicopter Seed

I expect I’ll leave something in the tumble
and roll of the meandering river,
the grit of my search settling with the undisturbed
heavier stones, or maybe shoveled
off like helicopter seed where the chaos
of the day retrieves itself. Maybe the torn
edges of my own shadow snaggered by locust
    thorns,
leaves of thought hiding from rituals of gain and
    loss.

And the next stranger’s trespass will make no
sense of my confusion of footprints. The crisp
nettles vibrating in the breeze will have
disguised my voice; the thatch-work already
sprung back to the memory of itself (the trees
still leaning, though, as if they still see me).

______

Barry Ballard’s most recent poetry collection is A Body Speaks Through Fence Lines, published by Pudding House in 2006. He can be heard reading these poems at www.caveat-lector.org.