Kentucky Lullaby--A Poem

Growing up,

my alarm clock was the

five a.m. train

behind my house.

It was also my

white noise

after a grueling day of

public education,

where gossip was

currency and bravery

was rewarded with contempt.

So many nights,

I heard the crickets

beyond my window

and wondered who

they were singing to--

the stars, or perhaps,

the moon, maybe the sun

as it slunk down the horizon,

turning the sky into

a tapestry of gold and red,

sometimes indigo and royal purple.

Where I grew up,

I could always see the stars.

They surrounded my house--

spilled sugar on a velvet

tablecloth--and the moon

hung overhead like a watchful,

sleepy eye that closed more and more

as the days turned to weeks.

Someone more poetic than me

would call it a Cheshire grin,

I call it the watchful eye of

The Divine I had yet to know

or comprehend.

So many

honey-thick evenings

were spent on a back porch

or old swing set, watching dragonflies

drift over the nearby pond, birds

moving across the sky

like ink stains in water,

their songs far away,

high above where they could

echo and be heard by every

god.

Frogs,

fat and slick with mucus,

would join them,

their song coming

from a deeper place,

one formed in mud

and stone.

Dogs would howl

as the train sped past,

curious and concerned

about the thunder that brought

no rain.

This was the song

I heard from the time I was small.

When I think back

on that home at the end

of a gravel road,

I remember things--

not all of them good

but most of them

pretty great:

my mother

soaking chicken in watery

barbeque sauce,

Christmas music

oozing through a tinny speak,

a black dog holding watch

every night,

a mutt curled up

next to my twin,

a black cat that loved

my little sister with

all her heart,

Paris runway in

the living room,

a scrawny little brother

playing Power Rangers.

It's harder for me to

hear that lullaby now.

Though,

thankfully,

there is still a train

that speeds past my apartment,

booming horn recalling a time

when I slept

to a Kentucky lullaby.