Waiting for the News

Jesse Doiron

February 19, 2022

At five a. m.,

I stand beneath two level trees

of different species, 

waiting for the newspaper.

For years, the oak and pine

have shared 

the birds and squirrels,

arched above my driveway.

That I have seen these trees

grow tall together

is, suddenly,

remarkable to me.

For, when I was a boy,

trees seemed to simply be

and seemed always 

they simply would.

Now, anew, I stand upon an

unfamiliar edge of morning

and appreciate

their dim-lit leaves.

I sympathize

the sleepy sap of limbs

that must be tired 

of all that reaching up.

Some have fallen down;

more with winter will.

I know the oak

will lose his leaves.

His handmaid pine

will brown a bit

yet cling to green,

no matter if it frosts for days.

The warm September dawn

is slow and knows not

to be concerned

about the lack of light.

Wood roaches rattle mad

across the cracked cement;

their cousin crickets count 

in Fahrenheit.

The Wellborns’ cat

stares out, eyes only,

from the moon-shade-cover

of her ill-kempt garden.

Orion is still hunting

night things through the trees

as I wait in the driveway

for the far-flung news.

Jesse Doiron spent 13 years overseas in countries where he often felt as if he were a “thing” that had human qualities but couldn’t communicate them. He teaches college, now, to people a third his age. He still feels, often, as if he is a “thing” that has human qualities but can’t communicate them.