Three Songs

"My dogs perk their ears, and bound from the path. Instead of opening their dark wings the hens swirl and rush away under the trees, like little ostriches." – Oliver, "Three Songs"











We cross the highway by clicking away at the crosswalk for a light. Gas stations, print shops, a veterinarian line the road from left to right and hustle as best we can across, my dog somehow sensing we want to quickly escape the snare of turning traffic. My ear buds are still in, for who wants to hear the raw crash of such noise in the morning. I see the library, folded in by a hollow and trees, upcoming, the highschool set up upon a hill, the coming park a respite against the silliness of the world we continue to create and, sensing that truck brakes can no longer be heard, take out my music, and there it is, a crisp February wind slipping through the pine limbs. It might be a swingset, abandoned now by cold chrome winter, squeaking at the links and latches. My eyes are the same as when I twelve. There I lived the two same lives. Did they ever write a song about me: he escaped through to the wind on the other side.