Member Poem

The clouds keep growling like a rabid dog
and, as we walk, those livid monsters light
upon the land, the trees, the cemetery
with javelins of fire. Rain goes on falling,
each drop a little bomb. I’d give the moon
for an umbrella. Somehow I had missed

the forecast. Now I’m trekking through thick mist
stretching its fingers to the trees. My dog
shakes water off his fur as the full moon
peeks like a bashful boy, shedding its light
past rushing cumuli, pale ghost-light falling
across the tombstones in the cemetery.

We go on walking round the cemetery
and listen to the crickets through the mist,
their low drawn-out autumnal chirps all falling
like vestiges of raindrops. The small dog,
now glimpsing a striped creature, is as light
and quick as phantoms. He is over the moon,

and rushes toward the varmint. Many moons
ago, right in this very cemetery
one squirted him. I truly hope some light
will dawn on him. Perhaps he won’t get misted
this time around. One thing’s for sure: he’ll dog
the cat-sized creature, who will never fall

to a rat terrier. It will surely fall
to me to get his canine smell back. Moon
plus smelly-weaponed beast plus dauntless dog
equals a sad night at the cemetery.
It’s fired its fetid juice. No chance it missed!
As Duke rolls on the lawn, a glaring light

comes toward us from around the bend, the light
of an approaching car. Were it to fall
across our forms . . . Headlamps through the mist
must surely be a cruiser. Now the moon,
as if through a megaphone, yells, “Do not tarry!”
Too late! The officer has seen the dog,

then smells the dog, and lights right out of here.
With footfalls now as weightless as the mist,
once more we prowl this moonlit cemetery.

_______

(Appeared in Limn Literary and Arts Journal)