By David Stallings © 2004
Most nights we read aloud,
sloped against each other on the
afghan covered couch.
Through Narnia and Earthsea
we cheered Good’s
endless battles with Evil.
One night, when it was time,
we placed Air’s homemade
super kiss bookmark at
chapter’s end.
She climbed up to her bed
built over drawers and low closet.
A guardian angel looked down
from the low ceiling,
and glow-in-the-dark stars absorbed light
for their upcoming [...]
By David Stallings © 2003
From dusky fir
ascends the heart break
of the Swainson’s thrush,
gray-green movement
stirring the summer twilight.
At meadow’s edge my infant daughter
sturdily answers the woodland voice,
La-a-a-a-ahh; alaah!
Again and again.
Soundless tears stream,
my constricting fears
of fatherhood
released.
(Number 4 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)
By David Stallings © 2002
We drive to the Homeplace,
near the old Enterprise Community,
Gibson County, West Tennessee.
Here Granny and Daddy Joe raised
the kids who lived,
my father the youngest,
and buried the five who didn’t.
Burned by lightening decades ago,
only mounds of brick and
rickety outbuildings remain.
There, the smoke house;
here, a chit box
used to pay hired help.
Forgotten lives quicken,
roused in stories told
by aging cousins,
bent [...]
