Poem of the Day: “in my yard” by John Reinhart, Frequent Contributor and Poet of the Week

Songs of Eretz Poetry Review is pleased to present “in my yard” by John Reinhart, a Songs of Eretz Frequent Contributor and this week’s Poet of the Week.  Mr. Reinhart’s biography may be found in the “About Our Editor & Frequent Contributors” section.

in my yard

John Reinhart

police respond to a report of three small children on a roof

blue, purple, violet, pink morning glories creep skyward

a passing truck grinds a pebble, which shoots westward

we are only as good as our kites on the last windy day

stones leer at clouds

a distant radio captures the past

two crickets mate on the end of a branch

airplane exhaust spells mysterious incantations

a cat pounces on kite tails trailing among weeds

meteors paint hymns still forgotten

deep in the compost, an earthworm propels itself forward

leaf boats careen heedlessly down unblocked gutter spouts

Poet’s Notes:  In an interview with Moon Pigeon Press, I described my relationship with form in poetry, and particularly the form in "in my yard." There's a mirroring, yet that mirror distorts the imagery slightly. I collect broken mirrors. The images here are all true, except that the police did not show up for children on the roof. (It was my mother-in-law who was most nervous about my three helpers, aged 5, 4 and 2, cleaning the gutters.) They showed up for a naked child running down the road. The police have never shown up at my house for the morning glories, the trucks, the stones, the crickets, the cat, the meteors, the earthworms, or the leaf boats, not to mention the fires, the rain barrels, the dismantled antique vacuum cleaner on the front porch, bicycles in the road, children on top of cars, or the small children operating heavy machinery, wielding saws, flashing knives, or disseminating radical ideas. Unfortunate, really. I'll talk to anyone willing to listen. Maybe that's the problem.