Amid the screeching
Screaming tires of the night,
When dreams, fragile dreams
Are about to be crushed,
Listen, listen!
You may hear the mockingbird
Singing in the dark,
I did!
Cerita M. Hewett
April 22, 1988
birds
Polished Sandhill Crane
A polished sandhill crane
Stands on the table of my room,
White Tail-feathers nearly brush the ground,
Slender feet sustain it carefully,
As though ‘twould walk quite soon,
Beneath the long and gracious neck,
Shines out an oval spot of brown.
Her beak,
Like an ivory needle gently drawn high,
Attracts my eyelids upward from the earth,
Stretching gladly toward the pale blue sky.
My spirit seems to soar with a new birth.
The one who carved you
From that discarded horn,
Made you to match his lofty thought,
Through his delightful toil,
Your life was born,
By his sincerity
A thing of beauty wrought.
You stand there doing nothing,
Bending not a knee,
Still in your shaping
A heart gave,
Now looking
Uplifts me.
Cerita Marie Moore
January 4, 1966
Thanksgiving Symphony
The goose orchestra is playing today on the lake,
A cacophony of sound
Tossed into the air by a brisk north wind,
Softened by the muffled wing flapping of late concert goers.
The gray sky and brown grass welcome the joyous music,
On an otherwise silent winter day,
As a thousand geese perform a symphony of gratitude,
For their safe arrival to our little lake of the south,
And we, with God, are listening.
Cerita M. Hewett
November 2005
Revised November 2014
Harvesters
Arrived today
Somehow they know
When the husks
Split open on the pecans.
My man plants his booted foot
On one end of a springy slat
Lifts up the other end and
Three times he lets it go.
Wham! Wham! Wham!
The shinny black demons fly
Cawing their irritation at a feast
Interrupted.
Circling, calling raucously they
Descend again
Signaling their defiance
At the warning whams.
We go out
Sacrificing gorgeous autumn days to
Shake the trees and
Gather up the nuts,
Not conceding
All the delicious pecans to
The harvesters.
Cerita M. Hewett
November 2001
(revised 2014)
No More
Behind the Alojamiento.
In the daytime, mostly hidden,
An owl sat in a leafy tree,
Only eyes, a foot, and half a body visible,
We looked for him in the light,
As we walked by there each day,
And listened for him at night,
As we lay suspended between awake and asleep.
Once in a while we would hear
A soft ooo- ooo- ooo-
Or a muted rustle of
Wings in flight.
Then one day we saw him no more,
Heard him no more,
Yet our heads turn as we pass his perch,
Hoping for one more sighting.
Still we listen for his call in the twilight hours,
Just a mirage remains,
Just an echo in our brains,
Only a gentle, pleasant, lingering memory!
Cerita M. Hewett
September 4, 2010