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Poems by Bill Reynolds.....
Now I Lay Me….
As I lay on my bed
listening to the sounds
in the street below
I thought about the play
we had done :
a melodrama
faceless characters
exaggerated actions
magnified emotions.
Rose was in it
the persecuted heroine
more sinned against than most
and I was the manly hero.
“Rose,” I said. “Meet me
on the bridge at midnight!”
and the words
of the deep-dyed villain
rang in my ears :
“You shall pay dearly
for this night’s work!”
I lay back and wondered:
What would it be like
to meet Rose at midnight
here in my room? and What
would I have to pay so dearly for?
As I stretched out, near sleep,
the giant garage door
of the Apex Hauling Company
across the street
emitted a long, rasping groan;
it creaked, broke into sections,
and lifted on its rollers to
let the trucks enter for the night.
Peonies
Ants crowd the surface of the buds
in early May sucking the nectar
that seals the petals closed. Day
after day they work, attacking
the petals’ edges. Week after week,
the buds grow larger, and then
one morning, there they are:
the petals in the night have given in,
the ants are gone, and the buds have
flowered into a lovely white tinged
with pink. Other buds attract no ants
for some reason, or not for long, and
forgetting the promise of bloom, they
harden and wither away.
Marriages are like that.