Vespers

by Christopher Seid

Evening dawns. Everything stalls.
A husk of landscape shucked from cobble
and copse, smoldering snow thrashed
in the daily wisp of willows.
What dies? What lies? What dries out?
Fires flying in the eyes of those men
combing the cropped grass for grubs,
the distant highway’s diminishing whine
and circumnavigational rhymes.
Everything slows — but everything sings.
Coals seethe long after their tender’s retired
and smoke sags over the empty stage.
The hollow dark. The holler darker.
How long has the audience been estranged?