FREDERICK E. WHITEHEAD
Click headshot for bio
ON THE HOBUCK BRIDGE
AFTER READING WALDEN
if the creek is here for any reason
other than simply to move water
from hills to lake
it is to help erase
for an hour or so
any contingencies you’ve
battled yourself over
leaving room on the page
for honest sketches of just what
the machine has produced for you
revealing how much
you can do without
if you can find the courage to
seek a healthy
deviation from conformity
SITTING BESIDE
THE SELF ADVOCATE
uneasy thoughts choke out a decent day
they grow like kudzu
I recollect that
in all the times
I’ve tried to regain balance among
all this mechanical droning
there has yet to be found
a chair whose intent was not
to deaden my spine
in my exhausted state my
cognitive geometry
drafts invisible lines between
the overworked doctor
proselytizing western solutions
and the woman so spiritually removed
from it all that
she questions everything
in a skeptical tone
I’ve come to know well
while I
the concerned agnostic
in an uncomfortable chair in the corner
stay silent
aside from an occasional agreement
to symptoms and the frequency thereof
and watch as she draws strength
from some place I haven’t discovered yet
I’m there to clear the deck and
gather maps for her
as she directs the crew from a crow’s nest
built of more close calls
and failed excursions
than anyone should have to endure
WE ALL KNEW HIM AS GRANDPA
I came back to the neighborhood
to see him
to tell him of my latest travels
I searched for the right words
trying to read his face in translation
something by the way
I’ve never been good at
waiting for some spontaneous
positive appraisal of my wanderlust
but no matter how I tried to define
the unusual setting I spent
the last month exploring
he couldn’t grasp the majesty
and only nodded at certain points in the tale
he was a man whose
interests began at the skirt of his driveway
and ended at the dying ash tree
that marked the far end of his yard
sure
he had mountains in frames
oceans in books
and a coffee cup
gifted to him
with the Mississippi flowing
from rim to bottom
but he never felt the need to be
entranced by anything grander than
the peonies his late wife planted
the year they bought the house
he’d sit by them on warm evenings
which is where I found him tonight
talking to her presence
in that same steady voice
he would use
when explaining to us kids
that the world you make for yourself
is the only one you’ll ever need
