Memory’s a sturdy leaf — sycamore, say, or valley oak,
placed beneath a sheet of grade school paper fleck’d and grain’d,
and a crayon in your hand — rubb’d across its ribs and veins,
it surfaces in your chosen color — and all you love
begins again — father, mother, supper table,
open kitchen window — and somewhere, off in the distance,
carry’d nigh by the divine providence of dust — a coyote howls.
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Categories: New Poems & Pieces
Tags: Aging, Childhood, Coyotes, Memory, My Father, My Mother, Oaks, Our Old Farm, Poems, Poetry, Sycamores, The San Joaquin Valley