closing shop

closing shop

 

 

 

a blue jay sang off key

and i breathed a last breath

the oaks above squandered tears

and the real rain became a dried gulch of apathy

 

squirrels celebrated

unbeknownst to what they were cheering

as acorns dropped from God's sky

at least that was the last sound that reached my ears

 

and then a few blades of grass turned brown

a cold wind choked the last of summer's warmth

the shades of life were drawn

and soon an empty house was covered in white prayer.

 

 

 

erin-cilberto

9/10/19

Reviews

[Rhayne]

What a sad but beautiful picture. The old man had taken a rest and sat down, leaning against the old oak tree. It was a late fall day. A single blue jay sang above him, causing him to drift off to sleep, just resting. But in reality, he was dying. No pain, just resting. Acorns began falling from the tree sounding like large raindrops on the ground. It was playful squirrels running through the branches. They came down to gather and were celebrating their winter stash, not paying any attention to the old man sleeping against their tree. Maybe his body wasn't found right away and the seasons changed. Then, it began to snow while his family held his wake inside his home. He had died a peaceful death in a place he loved.

I remember when I was girl and my Dad would lay in his hammock in the back yard. The squirrels would actually crawl around on him and it amazed me that they weren't afraid of him. I soon learned why. He would pack his shirt pocket and his palms with pecans and pretend he was asleep. He also used to have a bumble bee that flew over his head the entire time it took him to cut the grass. Back and forth, back and forth, two inches above his head. All animals loved my Dad, but not as much as me!

I loved your poem. It gave me the vision of Grandfather and the oak tree in the field he loved to walk through. He passed there.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

i just love this review and your memories...up in Vermont at the farmhouse where we stayed there was a hammock...i loved lying in it...
love the pecan story...
thank you for your visit and sharing..
j.

[Rhayne]

Thank you for such wonderful poems to read!

[Patricia Wedel]

dear Jacob... "an empty house was covered in white prayer" ... the Winter of our life could be
as beautiful as newly fallen snow softly falling on a field of blessings. I lived in a Grove of Oak trees
and often heard Acorns falling... that would be a lovely sound to hear before I leave.... and
perhaps a songbird to sing my eulogy. truly, Pat

[jacob erin-cilberto]

thank you for your kind words and sharing your feelings from this, Pat,
j.

[CD Campbell]

For some reason the soft imagery presented shares a parallel to today's remembrance of the tragic events, what is it ? 18 years ago? Wow almost 20. Things are almost the same. I thought of the dust covering everything around ground zero with your last line. The shops around are all truly closed. It's the magic of the poet who brings out what the reader is thinking and creates a bond. you do that very well.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

hadn't consciously thought of that while writing, but very interesting that you brought that up...because it has been on my mind...and could have been in this write without me realizing it...have a close friend who was at the pentagon that day...and would have been walking out right as the plane crashed into the entrance, but he had stopped off to visit a colleague and they were both safe where they were.
thank you for the thought you put into this read,
j.

[CD Campbell]

It's what I do. Overthink things.

[Dave Brown]

I am usually somewhat overwhelmed by your work but there are a couple of tugs here, the first being the creek which we have through our place and how the seasons regulate it's personality.
At present, no rain, very little water but not yet at all cold.
The bluejays, squirrels, acorns and some turning leaves and a less than pleasant recognition that snowblowers could soon be activated
All part of that yearly thingy

[jacob erin-cilberto]

thank you for your kind review, Dave,
glad you could relate...
j.

[Linda Marie Van Tassell]

This is beautiful. The imagery throughout is salient. The last line, in particular, blooms in the mind's eye. Love!

[jacob erin-cilberto]

thank you for your kind words, Linda,
j.

[Julie McCarthy (juliesp..]

Just love the verses starting with “squirrels celebrated “and ending ‘with reached my ears “beautiful just beautiful
I love this poem

[jacob erin-cilberto]

thank you, much, Julie, for your kind words,
j.

[Ted Kniffen]

How the seasons change...constant...reliable...maybe a little late now and then, but they'll change nonetheless...as will we...from viable lives to dust, as it must be, and all the choices made, all the mistakes lived with will fade away with Time.

Good one, j.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

i appreciate your insights, Ted....thanks much
j.

[Eilis]

This feels Dickinson-esque to me. The plaintive tone mixed with an almost longing contemplation of death. She always bewilders me with her depths- the way she saw death as something almost kin or friendly. Something to embrace. At least that’s how I read her sometimes. And this poem also has a similar quality.

Are you familiar with Frank Stanford? He had a similar way (to my mind) of addressing the future. Death comes to us all. The interesting thing in your poem is that the speaker feels he will be witness to reality while in the midst of dying. Or lying dead. Like the wish we maybe have all had to be there to see what people will have to say about us.

I don’t know. There’s something here that’s deeper that I’m missing now, but it will come to me later. Really enjoyed this skirting between two worlds, Jacob.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

thank you for your very kind review, Eilis...and i am not familiar with Frank Stanford but will look for him.
appreciate your visit and expansive review,
j.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

and the allusion to Emily, she is my favorite and yes, she felt she knew death better than anyone and wrote using apostrophe in so many of her works.

[Eilis]

There are a lot of Stanford poems on the Poetry Foundation website. My favorite, though, is Time Forks Perpetually Toward Innumerable Futures In One of Them I Am Your Enemy. It’s long, but worth it, in my opinion. Others are these opaque, though.

[Corset]

Back to the dust we all go eventually, I love how you incorporated nature in this, dying is a very natural thing to do, it must be done, and our seasons all wind down hopefully to a white prayer. This was beautiful, sad and there was an acceptance in it to, to what is in our nature to do. We all must do three things...defecate, die, and evade taxes :P

[jacob erin-cilberto]

yes, all three...thank you for your kind words, Corset,
j.

[kentuck14]

J,
Nice melancholy touch . . . as the Autumn season usually indicates. Down here (KY) our temperatures are in the 90's so I am impatiently waiting for what I enjoyed so much living in upstate NY . . . the very things you speak of in your [poem.
T

[jacob erin-cilberto]

Yes, and here in Southern Illinois it is 100 heat index...ugh...please come fast, Autumn!
thank you for your visit, Tom,
j.