i'm not sure if i am
any longer good at hitching a horse
to a plow.  neither have i set a fence post
in recent years...

i have written poems that the world
will soon forget,
planned a future with a man
who wasn't there,
listened to a pervasive silence.

there is an old saying,
"when the general leaves
for the battlefield
he does not turn back
in remembrance."

behind me, there is a bald hill
of prickly trees
and a lonely house leaning on it--
i do not look back.

around that house,
all through the long night,
the wind wanders over memory
erasing pieces of the sky