Where I Am

Chip Dameron

July 8, 2021

The milky dusk highlights the bare branches

of cedar elms, and oak trees fledge green life.

Two cardinals arrive, hop and peck seeds

beneath the emptied feeder. As shadows 

begin to deepen, darken, cricket time

ticks, ticks ticks. Are the deer lonely? Squirrels?

Have they changed their pre-pandemic routines?

Have the stars? As night comes on, cloaked and still,

stealing the last of daytime memories,

I sink into a sea of dreams, where hope

and heartache dance and quarrel, and what’s lost

may return, or disappear forever. 

When day breaks, the new quotidian calls

me forth, onward into the scouring light.

Chip Dameron is the author of ten collections of poetry, including his latest, Mornings with Dobie’s Ghost. A member of the Texas Institute of Letters, he’s also been a Dobie Paisano fellow, and he currently serves on the board of the Writers’ League of Texas.