Quietly Waiting for Catastrophe
Sometimes the mind goes to grim places. Sometimes that’s what makes us hold onto each other a little bit tighter.
Take this evening as proof enough, everything bedding down again,
my son’s laughter in the back yard caroming through the forest, cicadas
rising heavily from low limbs looking for higher ground.
I think of everyone I love. In a moment they could be dead.
It’s evening in the foothills, late summer now.
Laughter and insect songs and somewhere a dog is barking its head off.
Somewhere someone is stepping into the next morning, to the other side,
without helping hand or lay of the land.
No one returned to report from the enemy
camp, so to speak. I hold my son’s hand and walk him inside.
I don’t let go after we’re in the door,
I don’t let go. I don’t.
About the author
Spencer K. M. Brown is an award-winning poet and novelist. He is the author of the novels Move Over Mountain and Hold Fast and the poetry collection Cicada Rex. He lives in the foothills of North Carolina with his wife and two sons.
- Spencer K. M. Brownhttps://www.salvationsouth.com/author/spencer-k-m-brown/
