Funeral Pyre

RON WALLACE

May 1, 2020

New leaves, greening above me,

are swaying to “Paradise” playing on my phone 

          like an old transistor radio

that, somehow, has rediscovered sound.

I take a moment,

for what once were muscles,

struggle now to lift a leaf rake

           freight-hauler hands

have gone softer than the cotton gloves that hold them,

and blisters rise where callouses once called home.

Faded-to-white curls

hang beneath my sweat-stained Yankee cap.

Just an old cowboy herding leaves and copperheads

that sleep beneath the aftermath of autumn

          into a pile for burning,

a funeral pyre for this spring without baseball,

this world without John Prine in it.

An antique red Chevy pickup rolls slow

past my front yard,

you wave a massive hand from the driver’s side

          and I think to myself:

even my favorite ghosts are social distancing

during this time of virus.

Back in the real world

my boot heel destroys a snake making his escape.

I strike the match, light the leaves

          and move on.

RON WALLACE is an English instructor at Southeastern Oklahoma State University in Durant, Oklahoma. He is the author of nine books of poetry, five of them finalists in The Oklahoma Book Awards with his collection Renegade and Other Poems winning the 2018 award. He recently edited an anthology of Oklahoma poetry titled Bull Buffalo and Indian Paintbrush (the Poetry of Oklahoma).