Thursday Twofer

A Little Violence

In the second scene, the plea 
was nearly whispered, the snake 
quite small—could generate a nasty 
bite, that’s so—my neighbor’s breathing spoke
something more, and so I strode 
into the garden, with much purpose 
but without intention, not knowing 
how this scene would unfold, but the snake 
was on the move, and this enactment needed 
to find its conclusion, and so I acted, 
and in that moment, a little violence, 
now the curtain drawn.

Ladson 2014

                                   When You Stop Talking

When you stop talking,

I will come and sit by you

in your father’s orchard,

among the apple trees, blossoms come

from hard wood.

 

When you stop talking,

I will hold your hand,

or maybe take both of them in mine,

while we sit and watch the sea 

loll about in and out on the sand.

 

When you stop talking,

I may panic—something wrong—

and so pace about the garden,

hemmed in between walls older by a hundred years

than we could ever be.

 

When you stop talking,

that may be the moment—

a kiss.

We may hear the muted song of a meadowlark. 

If. 

Ladson 2015