Counting the Days / Waiting to Find Us by Martin Willitts Jr.

Counting the Days

 

The burdened trees at beginning of day 

bent more, bent

lower, like a person tired after a hard day,

striving for an impossible goal,

knowing the search must carry on

to another day. 

 

Small moments gather, tiny details — 

like the randomness of common grackles

composing on the ground,

pricking their tails in the headwinds.

 

Not even snow flurries

unbundling out of nowhere

deterred those birds 

from rushing headlong 

into the empty tree branches,

bending light.

 

That noise, 

then silence — 

both were quick notations.

Waiting to Find Us

 

Someone senses their way through time 

with a hushed breath, all the way to the edge

where no one listens but they should.

 

When that person reaches where they are going, 

bone-weary, irredeemable, in what condition

will they be in? 

 

There is a darkness within us. But overhead, 

there is always a penetrating light

waiting to find us.  

Martin Willitts Jr is a frequent poet in Black Poppy Review. He is a retired Librarian. He has over 10 full-length collections including forthcoming, "The Uncertain Lover" (Dos Madres Press).