This Place
It’s enough to make you wonder,
this place, who the ghosts are, and why.
You ask the river that won’t shut down,
even when you turn away. “I tried,” you
tell
the gateman, “I tried to understand.”
But no one listens except rocks
who vowed silence long ago, no matter
how often earth shifts or trees grow up
through crevices to wave at passersby.
One could be me. I come whenever I pass
this way to keep my promise when I was
young.
We walked in the river, my father and I.
The sun beat down. The fish weren’t
biting.
“I told you to wear a hat, but you forgot.”
I looked up. “Here,” he said,
“take mine.”
—Donnell Hunter
17 March 2012
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