Raising Windmills

artwork: ralph murre

Raising Windmills

by Mary Wehner

Against a calculated wing swing

in the parsed-out fields

the rolling hills cease their rolling.

Cattle hunch, geese scatter,

the polished white shadows

like spinning armies march and pulse.

It was in the winter months

the strangers came, sat at the farmer’s

kitchen table, laying out their cards,

a few extra bucks in a hard clay world,

a little help for the worried. No one loses

they said and shook hands. A done deal.

There’s clean power for the folks in Chicago,

some left over for the Wisconsin neighbors now

awake most nights counting the timed red flickers.

~ first published in Verse Wisconsin

At This Age

artwork: mary wehner

At This Age

 by Mary Wehner

It feels inordinately calm,

like November’s lake beginning its casual curl,

the late geranium in staunch regard,

agreeable in the changing light —

restlessness set aside like a spade in winter,

the low voice in the kitchen

where everything smells of fennel and rosemary,

hum and whistle in the front room, the logs catching.

~ first published in HUMMINGBIRD

Diptera

artwork: ralph murre

Diptera

by Mary Wehner

Black fly in the wedge of bark,

thin wings resting—

body, boneless still.

Difficult life, that of a fly,

picking through shit,

starved for the sweet in the stubble.

Believe you me,

I too see with a bulged eye,

I too want to step firmly

in the warm decay,

suck the heart from whatever I find.

O Speck!

Ready yourself for flight.

Pity me my grounding.

~ previously published in “…or the opposite” (Red Hydra Press)

FOURTEENTH BLACKBIRD

photoart: ralph murre

Fourteenth Blackbird
by Mary Wehner

Leaning over the newspaper
this morning, reading a piece by a local
writer on spring, I was startled to find
a reference to a poem, the one
about blackbirds. Just two lines
pulled from the poem’s long, lyrical list,

The river is moving
The blackbird must be flying

missing the rhythmic connections
one makes while reading the thirteen ways
of looking, missing too, you might say,
the underlying impact, and yet,
I can see him at his desk, googling
“blackbirds” looking out the window
of the bright newsroom, down
on the narrow, winding river
with its scrawny willows, listening
for the clean, thin whistle of the redwing.

~ first published in Shepherd Express