I am sitting at a weathered picnic table,

on my retired firefighter friend’s farm.

A moment ago, a tractor grunted up,

and the chickens and roosters ran to me

as if I could defend them from the industrial monster.

The shaggy dog bumbled past—unbothered,

and the tractor slurped its lament around the dwarf hill.

 

Gary appeared from the barn.

He walked past me not to disturb my writing,

vanishing into his shoulders drooped by time absorption.

His silence has been chiming like a clock,

and resetting time for everyone here.

 

Every time Gary walks,

a piece of him breaks off and hangs on the clotheslines

that strike through the farm.

 

June 2026

Gambier, Ohio, USA

 

Cover art by Budget Bizar on Pexels