Carrying On

“Are you authorised to speak


For these trees without leaves?

Are you able to explain

What the wind intends to do

With a man’s shirt and a woman’s nightgown

Left on the laundry line?

What do you know about dark clouds?

Ponds full of fallen leaves?

Old model cars rusting in a driveway?

Who gave you permission

To look at the beer can in a ditch?

The white cross by the side of the road?

The swing set in the widow’s yard?

Ask yourself, if words are enough,

Or if you’d be better off

Flapping your wings from tree to tree

And carrying on like a crow?”

Charles Simac, Carrying On like a Crow  

Here are my answers to some of the poem’s questions:

Am I responsible for the dead and dying trees without leaves? Apparently not. We just lost a large, drought-stressed pine tree between the house and the street. We chose euthanasia of a still living tree when the 18” trunk broke and the top 15 feet kneeled slowly and gracefully across our driveway. Our professional tree guy agreed that it was the equivalent of a suicide note from a tree.

As for what the wind does with laundry left on the line, it’s been about 40 years since I’ve hung laundry, so no, I can’t explain.

What I know about dark clouds is that rain is promised but that fickle clouds often move over the mountains to the east before rain falls.

WRT/ ponds full of leaves and old model cars rusting in a driveway I know for a fact that such clutter is like an unwanted side effect of my happy marriage. That I hate clutter goes without saying - it makes me testy. Accordingly, I don’t need no stinking permission to look at roadside litter.

As for finding words to explain images like roadside crosses and swing sets moving in the wind over the widow’s back fence; am I better off flapping my wings in the trees and carrying on like a crow?  To which I respond: Caw!