A Poem a Day (681): Hollows

 
He guards the hidden hollows,
cobwebbed snags in window frames,
corners asleep in the acreage,
where the hundreds came and went.
 
We sit in the dugout fireplace,
smell the scarlet wave of ember leaves
and disappear into the missing edges,
the past sneaking out of dank walls.
 
Shadows hunt without guile.
We are the mirrors of our histories,
mortality sunk, a-spiral in the smoke
perspiring through covert echoes.
 
They say it will snow, cover every track,
dents and ingress, the expedient,
and we grow old imagining how
to weather this frigid earth.
 
He makes his presence known sometimes,
lays heavy on our silent shoulders
not quite broad enough to take
the weight of his fate.
 
In the winter we raise a crimson toast,
remember, trace the date full back
a hundred years now spent.
A twist in the past, a fork in the road.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, August 30, 2024