324. LANDSCAPE AT BRAVURA

LANDSCAPE AT BRAVURA
I'm leaving an etching behind; something anyone
can see. No special invitation needed, for this,
my gallery. It's of a place I've always loved, or
at least wanted to be. Rolling hills. The rustic
clock tower on the municipal lawn. An old
carriage in the workshed by the wooden bandshell.
Elm trees soaring, their spreading arms the
size of high caverns - making a cove I can
walk beneath. I was 10. I was 20. Everyday a
different parade. The carpenter-gothic housefronts,
and the old wooden church. An owl on the 7th eave.
In the stellar evening, the bats each night, and
the lightning bugs at Summer dusks.
Walking the shrouded streets, with his black bag
in hand, Doctor Madison, again, leaving from
a house. The wagon, at dawn, sliding by with
its clink-cargo of bottled milk. The clop-clop
of that dull old horse. 'Maizy', each day again,
'Maizy'. The regularity of something good;
the distant, far better, once-off, life.