KS Culbreth

The World Unfinished: Poetry of New Hope
Foreword

i. to dwell in towns of desuetude
neither wind nor breeze nor any blade nor leaf stirring in these dense
woods. overhead the canopy an interwoven lace, threadbare,
parched and sun-yellowed the dried fabric. you turn fully round to
get your bearings, the trail you laid like smoke in the night already
vanished.
it is too silent, too still and before you leave to set off in one
direction toward escape, coming slowly into focus the last trace of a
tunnel through the woods. working your weary legs through the
tangled weeds and litter of last year’s leaves you find two even ruts
that follow the tunnel till the woods close around it where it turns out
of view. yes, they have considered at great length of where the road
forks and which to take, but what of the dirt road that simply fades
into the reclaiming woods?
in a dense web of ivy, two stone pillars. it isn’t until you are between
them that you notice the catalpas stretching in a long line through
the woods, twisted in wretched mourning along the overgrown road.
through the remnants of the gate, then a swath where no trees grow,
the canopy open here, the sun searing, the thin grass dried, the earth
a baked clay.
there before you then a rectangle of ferns that are not native to the
area, only able to grow here where the lime of disintegrating mortar
has softened the acid of the soil.
and you whisper, “this, then, was our home.”
farther down the rutted road, another flat area where tree grows not
and the sky high and blue overhead. almost lost in the twining of a
cedar a straight and rusting trunk that will not outlive the
evergreens…
will not endure.
and at its top a bent and rusted shingle, the name of a town you’d
almost forgotten along its top edge and in broken letters beneath,
Rosemont Terr.
“and this, too,” you whisper, nodding, “was our town.”
you look up and down the fading road, trying to find some semblance
of all that was familiar, and wish, beyond all else, there could be
some familiar face, a loved one these many decades interred, would
come to you with something like hope, when, through the dried grass,
pressed over by some forgotten wind, he slithers on his belly toward
your bare ankles

ii. the specter of dawn
morningbreak. a cold damp smoke over the canal, enveloping the
town and curling from the river along its edge. the main street shiny
and black from the night’s storm. buildings and walk, bright flowers
in planters and the stunted trees along the curb still wet. early scent
of breakfast through windows cracked open though it is caught in the
stillness and cannot drift far from its source.
in a matter of hours the streets will be clogged with pedestrians
wandering, watching, browsing, licking ice cream cones, hiding from
the remorseless sun of summer. the gloaming will come, the laughter
will dwell on and tire, temptation will strike as it always does and
win most of its prizes.
the hordes will come as they always do, as they are obligated, to put
some pause in their driven lives, their lives of almost constant
routine and sleep and dream.
the magic of the summer night will intoxicate them and in the late
hours they will hover over her, birds of prey and jackals after the
feast, all of them, hovering near for a remnant the others perhaps
missed in the ravenous frenzy.
but you will escape from them all. you will stroll along the old canal,
again the pale moon and the clear sky, the air cool, just above a
chill, singing as you once did:
the pale, pale moon overhead
at our side the old canal
the pale, pale moon swinging overhead
beneath us summer’s narrow, beaten trail
– the stars in the skies
dim to the stars in our eyes
the pale, pale moon whispering overhead
– whispering in
a hidden wind
it’s a shame, shame, shame
that our night must end.
and then after two, they will disappear as routinely as they arrived.
the pavement of the town they trod, its centuries of history left behind
like paper napkins dropped in the gutter.
you awoke with the first light of dawn, as you always do, these
moments of peace something like the silence of the woods. steam
from your mug and you remember the dream, nightmare of a
hundred years from now when all is gone, you alone an ancient and
miracle survivor, all that you and yours know so well, forgotten, all
your lives having met their ends, separated by the impassable density
of earth, the earth that endures forever. each life then little more
than a collection of moments before the maker, moments of triumph
and joy, moments of defeat and regret.
you sip from the steaming mug, looking out your kitchen window at
the still canal, the banks where are the thousands who dug the canal
and fell from typhoid. you know that there is something about this
town that is as barren, as forgotten as your nightmare. but you are
too sleepy, it is too early to find the words.
you shake your head and almost laugh at how real dreams can seem.