Thanksgiving

What a day to dismantle a roller-coaster.
Well, they are taking it down--
the tracks are all over the ground
and the ties drawn up. The ticket office
is shut, the calliope covered with tarps.

These workmen move their rides
from town to town, with the weather,
and a day gained dismantling
is a day to them. They are grateful
for the day gained, and for the silence
in a park where only ducks and I remain.

As if against the numb fall sky,
sounds of hammers and crowbars
and the changing voice of one man's oldest son
rebound from pond to light pole and away.
Tomorrow they'll be on their way
to Arkansas, or a place they haven't
been before; today they're making time.

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poem by Peter Klappert
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Chokecherries

Thirty feet from my windows,
an old kennel-wire fence
thickly grown over with honeysuckle,
poison ivy, and wild roses
just beginning to open
into the loose sort of droopy garlands
an aesthetic young farmer
might drape around Elsie
or Dobbin.

....................Where the wire ends
and the knotted up, spiraling vines
paw toward more light, six slim
grey trunks of chokecherry
feather into leaves and
clusters of blossoming fronds
that lift and fall with the breeze
like diminutive mare's tails
--each separate flower a rose,
each separate flower

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poem by Peter Klappert
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